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diff --git a/unseen/Book 1/buda1.txt b/unseen/Book 1/buda1.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f3ba548 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 1/buda1.txt @@ -0,0 +1,71 @@ +The rippling black sea of hats undulates in rows as the men make their way out of the square. The trolleys are stopped, silent and abandoned. The sea moves slowly down, turning on Andrássey Avenue, past the black flags, away from the smoking bronze torches of the catafalque and toward the Ring. + +His father's shoulders lurch in time with the crowd. A woman in a black tea gown walks beside them. The drooping brim of her hat shades all but the sides of her cheeks which flush as her faint boots stumble awkwardly on the wooden planks of Andrássey Avenue. At the front of the procession, just behind the hearse with its gilded horses and wreaths from governors and statesmen, three riders hold silver staves, black lanterns hanging down. Wafts of Myrrh and incense drift back over the crowd carried on the still-chilly May air blowing down off the distant hills. The woman trips again. A man to her right catches her arm and holds her steady. Theo watches them, wondering why the man has no hat. The crowd shuffles on. + +On balconies above women curtsy the hearse. An old man in white linen suit doffs a bowler and makes a sweeping bow. Theo looks up to see the shining crown of the man's bald head. The man walking beside his father looks up as well and turns away smiling. He glances over at Theo and winks, but Theo is worried about the balconies. With the weight of so many onlookers he expects them to fall, crumbling into dusty rubble, destroying the waiters standing outside the café bars below. + +His father is moving faster now. There is less theatre the closer they get to the city cemetery. Eventually only the obligated dignitaries and family will stand beside the grave in the violet twilight, watching as the body is lowered into the ground. Already the crowd is beginning to disperse into the cafés and coffeehouses, but the man continues to walk beside them. His pointed goatee and thin sideburns remind Theo of the Turkish boatmen that frequent his father's house. But he doesn't have the dark skin of a Turk, he is paler, but still olive complexioned and wearing the finest looking cloth Theo has ever seen. + +At Octagon Square the trumpeter's horn blows and the hearse turns onto the Elizabeth Ring. His father turns with the other Guild members and Theo catches a glimpse of the governor as he steps inside the coach. The cafés have pulled their tables back, a band plays traditional Hungarian songs. Even the derelicts, drunks and hustlers seem to feel the need to remain in the shadows, though he can see the glint of freshly lighted gas lamps on their greasy, threadbare jackets as they huddle in the alleyways and stoops, hats removed while the procession passes. + +The man walking next to them begins to slow. Theo watches as his arm reaches out and grabs his father, who half turns and starts at first, nearly throwing Theo from his shoulders but catching himself just in time. The man without a hat steadies his father as he reaches up and lifts Theo's slight frame over his head, setting his feet down on the wooden planks. They talk for minute in hushed words Theo can't hear. The woman kneels down, smiling at Theo. + +Did you enjoy the procession? + +Yes ma'am says Theo shyly. She rustles his hair. + +Would you you like to have a cup of chocolate with us she asks smiling. + +Theo looks up at his father whose face is turned toward the man, his jaw set back and half clenched. Theo stiffens, but smiles back at the woman. Yes ma'am. + +His father hesitates but then shrugs and agrees, a nervous smile spreading slowly across his face. + +The somewhat awkward troupe settles into a corner table and the man and woman introduce themselves to Theo, but Theo is more interested in their clothes than their names. Both the man and the woman, whom Theo discerns is somehow or other connected to the man, have on a caliber of clothing Theo has never seen outside the shop windows along Vaci Street. The man's suit is impeccably tailored, fine and so deeply black that it seems to absorb the dull glow of the café's electric light. The woman's folds of chiffon rustle as she shifts in her seat, the delicate lace overlays and the velvet ribbon sashed high on her waist call out, begging him to crawl across the table and bury his head in them. She whispers something to the waiter and he disappears into the back, returning shortly with hard candy along with lager and spritzers for the rest of the table. Theo sits straight in his chair the way his father taught him, sucking deliciously on the crystallized candy while the woman tells his father about her own daughter, saying she would very much like to meet Theo, though Theo is unsure why that would be. He looks up to inquire about the daughter, but stops mid-thought when he sees it glittering on her neck. Before he can stop them, tears well up in his eyes turning the diamond broach dangling from her neck to a sea of starry crystals in his smarting eyes. He hurriedly sets the candy on a napkin and excuses himself to the restroom. + +In the back of the café, before ducking into the restroom, Theo turns around looking past that counter bar where a line of men in half-unbuttoned coats roar in drunkenly, sing-song welcoming the new century for the hundredth time. He watches his father talking to the woman in hoarse shouts, his face clouded by smoke from the cigarette that dangles from his slender fingers, the man between them smiles at Theo across the room. Theo turns and, after locking the bathroom door behind him, slumps to the floor and begins to sob uncontrollably. It starts as a single string plucked and then cascades like a bow pulled cross a full chord until the sound of his sobs fill the white marble tiles, dancing around the porcelain toilet, bouncing off the iron fixtures of the sink, muted by carefully laid towels that drive the sound down, under the closed door and out into the café where it disappears into the general murmur where nothing, not even a paltry echo, returns. Instead, something else creeps into his aural periphery, outside, through the window. Leaking in between the paint-flecked sill above his head come the sounds of a fiddle. Theo sniffles and forces himself quiet for a minute to listen closer, catching now the melody of a man singing punctuated by the clatter of a woman's boots on the hard stone of the alleyway outside. Theo stops crying entirely, caught up in the muted sounds just beyond the glazed glass. Listening closer he can hear the sound of a carriage further up the road, the murmur of dispersing crowds, the echo of men shouting on the street, the clanging of trolley bells, the clopping of horse hooves, and in the distance the fog horn of a barge departing down the Danube, but the woman's laugh pulls him closer, back into the alley just beyond the window above him. Theo stands up and fumbles with the weathered sill until he pries it open and looks down at the scene below. + +The fiddler is standing on a crate swaying back and forth to the music, head cocked half belting out a slurred song while he watches a man and woman dancing badly in front of him. Her skirts swirl, the man stumbles on the uneven ground and nearly causes her to fall. Theo rests his head on the windowsill and thinks about his dream, the same dream he has every night. His mother is there, someone is playing an accordion, another a fiddle, the room is dark lit only by a handful of candles burning on the table where he sits waiting for something. People are dancing round the open room in front of him, his mother among them but he can never see her clearly, only the faded and yellowing image from his father's bureau, spinning between the others before him, singing and laughing, but drained of color and life. At some point the apparition always crosses the room and leans down to whisper something in his ear before scooping him up in her arms, his forehead nestled against her skin, her neck warm against his face, the soft line of her jaw nestling his head beneath her chin where his lips purse on the hard and glittering diamante brooch. Out the corner of his eye the room is always a dizzying blur, his mother spins with the music, revealing to Theo a whirl of chairs and bookshelves intersected by men in long coats fanned out with the motion of their feet, women at the end of their outstretched arms, their skirts a blurry kaleidoscope of blues and whites and always the room begins to spin, creating its own momentum, turning and turning as more strings fill in the music, violas and cellos now, until a whole symphony is assembled and heading toward a crescendo when suddenly the bottom begins to drops out, one stuttering note at a time, slowly collapsing until the images begin to blur and fade away, first the cello, which disappears into the swirling flower patterns of the wallpaper, followed by the pounding timpani and marshal sounds which crumble into the wainscoting, until the fiddle falls silent and the accordion wheezes slowly into the smoky background, replaced by a suffocating blackness. Theo is falling now, looking back up at the faces above, watching him as he rushes downward and a sound begins to fill his ears, a sound like the Danube spilling its banks in the spring, it curls in under his toes and he feels unafraid, but certain he will die, and then the faces become too distant to see and the light disappears into a pinpoint star between the edge of everything and total blackness, until Theo starts upright in bed, gasping for breathe. + +He watches now as the man tries to spin the woman along his outstretched arm, away from the rotting cabbage and potato peelings of the alley gutter, but the stones beneath his feet seem to give way and he loses his balance and slowly falls in a crumbling motion into the rotting vegetables and sewer water, laughing as he goes. The fiddle player stops in concern. The man slowly picks himself up, still laughing and struggling out of his now filthy coat which he lets fall back into the gutter. He throws his arm around the woman and they walk off drunkenly, zigzagging up the alley and out into the street leaving the musician still standing, fiddle in hand, looking after them. + +Theo? + +The voice startles him away from the windows. Yes? He unlocks the door and the man in fine clothes slides in. + +What are you doing in here? + +Theo shrugs and gestures to the open window. Watching. + +The man studies his face for a moment and then asks if everything is okay. + +Theo thinks for moment and decides that this question is not meant to be answered. + +Theo watches as the man turns to the mirror and studies himself for a moment, idly dancing a gold coin across his knuckles and between his fingers. He looks at Theo through the mirror and turns, still flipping around the coin. And then suddenly it's gone. + +The man smiles and shrugs. + +Theo laughs and instinctively clasps the man's hand within his own, turning it over in search of the missing coin, but it isn't there. + +Where did it go? + +It's gone. + +Yes, but to where? + +Somewhere you can't go. + +Where is that? + +Look. The man turns over both hands to ensure that Theo can see he does not have the coin. Theo nods. + +The man then reaches up behind Theo's ear and pulls back with a large diamond stone dangling from a thin velvet choker that's laced between his fingers. + +Theo stands for a moment gaping. How did you... + +The man just shrugs. Clean yourself up and come back to the table and then maybe I'll show you. The man turns back to the mirror, touching his hair and smiling back at Theo before turning to disappear out the door. + +Theo steps up to the sink, standing on his tiptoes to wash his face when he notices at the bottom, near the drain plug, the missing gold coin. + +Theo looks up in surprise, but sees only his own face staring back at him. There is a moment of displacement and for the first time Theo sees himself as others must, a young boy in cheap clothes brushed and manicured to appear nicer than they are, it takes him a minute to realize that the reflected face in the mirror is his own. But when it dawns on him, he can feel his face freezing up, crystallizing into the form Theo will henceforth know, the smooth, almost angelic skin of a statue frozen in a moment he will soon forget. Though eventually spots of stubble will come in, and by seventeen a full beard much like his father's, will begin to grow, the smooth foreign skin will never entirely fade and the beard will never cover that momentary realization, the feeling of being an impostor in his own skin that lingers long after the realization has passed. + +That night, lying in bed listening to the barges plying their way down the Danube, Theo's dream changes. This time instead of dropping off into darkness, he remains, nestled against the rough coolness of the stone, his mother's neck warm against his check until the room gives way to the stars, puncture holes in the ceiling of the room at first until they begin to break free and the room falls away, down into the blackness away from Theo who finds himself beside the river watching as the man without a hat stands alone on the quay, dressed in the same black suit waving to Theo from the far shore. And then he disappears. diff --git a/unseen/Book 1/buda2.txt b/unseen/Book 1/buda2.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ad918d --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 1/buda2.txt @@ -0,0 +1,124 @@ +The pebble hits the window with a shocking crash that sends Theo bolting up in bed. In his groggy state it's the smell that registers first, a mingling of sour fish entrails in the gutters below and the thick smoke from the oil lamps hanging above them, that drifts in the open the window and through the fog of sleep. It's the clattering crash of a second stone, thrown with enough force to send the window banging back against the wall of Theo's second story house, that evaporates all trace of sleep. His heart is still pounding as leans his head out the window and looks down to see a man standing on the street below. + +He waves at Theo, his raspy murmur straining to his ear as a mere whisper of wind, your father, I must speak with your father. Theo nods and hurries across the room, his bare feet picking splinters from the rough floorboards. He fumbles beside the stove, nearly knocking over a half full pot of potato soup as he searches for the matches. His hands are blackened from the smudge of the stove and by the time he lights the lamp his father is already emerging from his bedroom. + +Who is it Theo? + +László. + +László? Hmm. His father grabs his trousers off the the back of a chair and cranes his neck to the side with a audible pop. + +László had been a common fixture at the table ever since the meeting at Munkácsy's funeral procession seven years before, but he generally arrived at ordinary times, late afternoon when Theo's father was just settling in to drink a glass of brandy and read from the latest addition to his library. László would bring a bottle of local wine pulled from what struck Theo and his father as a seemingly bottomless private cellar, which László never bothered to explain, preferring instead that both Theo and his father simply share a drink with him. Usually Theo would leave them to play with his friends out in the street, his father and László working their way through his father's stock of Magyar poetry and other dusty tomes, which Theo would occasionally read in secret, pouring over the tales of Gypsies migrating north from the Black Sea, following the Danube until they reached ancient Buda where they found fertile farmlands not unlike those they had abandoned years before. Other books mingled tales of Turkish princes and their harems, magicians vying for the Sultans audience and sometimes even a book of ritual incantations or long forgotten magical recipes which often turned out to be rather mundane in the end, like a spell to remove warts or bless the spirits of the kitchen. But, in several books, which were among Theo's favorites, the spells involved more sinister sounding things that were only vaguely hinted at. László would often chide his father for his collection of 'fairy tales' but would stop short of outright rejecting them, preferring instead to debate the sources, which would lead inevitably to their long running debate about what the practices of the Church really meant and whether man was not perhaps slightly misguided in his understanding of religion. + +Theo preferred to spend his evenings with his friends, a local collection of Gypsy children and Greeks from the houses near the end of the street, with a handful of Magyars, like Theo, whose parents refused to leave the southern flanks of Castle Hill. Theo's trademark in the gang was too disappear without word or warning, sometimes simply leaving the rest in the middle of the street scratching their heads and looking about to see where he might have gone. Normally this would have resulted in some taunting or even a fight or two, but early on in their friendship Theo had proved far tougher than his slight frame suggested, wrestling and delivering quite a beating to one of the larger boys thanks to the tricks László had showed him. Ever since that time the others had pretended to ignore Theo when he disappeared, though secretly several had tried and failed to follow him. But Theo was not anti-social and he love the long games of longa méta, though he wasn't so fond of the latest craze, soccer, which they played dodging between the trees of the apricot orchard at the foot of Castle Hill. When they were done they would stop outside the informal whorehouse at the end of Theo's street to try their hand at flirting with the girls or test some salacious slang learned from the older boys at school. The whores would learn out the the window, their long hair down, draping over the daisies growing in the windowsill planter and taunt the boys with their own, much more polished bits of lecherous talk. Theo would often walk away his face smarting and red with embarrassment though he was never quite sure why or what he was embarrassed about. + +Eventually Theo would return home for dinner and find the conversation between László and his father had drifted from poetry and Gypsies to the Church and parliament, which never failed to see a corresponding rise in volume of their voices. By the time the three sat to dinner a casual passerby in the streets below would be forgiven for thinking a small regiment of Cossacks was bunking in the second story of what was an otherwise unremarkable street in the Taban with its own share of flower stands, fishmongers, radish and potato carts, meat pies at the butcher's window and even of course the whorehouse, which had begun life as a proper boarding house, but over the years the properness had given way to harsher economic realities, though its status as brothel was still unofficial with an unmarked doorway in the back being the main means of entrance for most customers, a doorway which Theo would sometimes see his his father surreptitiously slip through. Some of the gang harbor a suspician that Theo himself might venture into the whorehouse when he mysteriously disappeared, since, they had noticed that he often disappeared suspiciously close to the building. But in fact Theo had never been in the whorehouse, nor did he really want go in. In fact he simply cut through the back courtyard on his way to his own house. During the week, in the late afternoons when László was not around, Theo would wait until he saw his father slip into the whorehouse and then cut home and pillage through his father's library, pulling down the old books and sitting at the table, carefully, almost ritualistically, examining the covers and binding before he would allow himself to open them. And then he would read, starting with any publishing or date materials on the inside of the front cover, noting who was responsible and trying to image what it must have been like, the author walking into the print shop with manuscript bound in hemp twine and the publisher perhaps just climbing down from a ladder where he was putting away a few old bits of type and turning to see the author, book in hand. What would they have talked about, how did the process work? Did the author simply hand over the book, turn and walk out? Or was there something more, a long discussion, a negotiation over afternoon tea or perhaps wine? Did men remove their coats and printer aprons an move up into the house? Would the printer's wife note perhaps have seated them in the parlor and refilled their glasses, glancing stealthy over their shoulders to steal a glimpse of a word here and there, a phrase, a sentence, perhaps even a whole paragraph? Was their discussion about the merits of the book? It's audience? How it might change everything, nothing or perhaps be ignored entirely? Having played out these scenarios to his satisfaction, Theo would then move on to the dedications, whether printed on behalf of the author or inscribed by some former owner of the book. Who was Margerite and what did she mean to the author who dedicated his book to her? Did Gyula Krúdy really love Mme. Pilisy or did he simple feel a societal obligation to dedicate his book to her? What did Gustav do to deserve this fine prefect bound tome that was given to him on Christ mass 1853? Some of the deications were written in languages Theo did not know, curious writing that seemed to use entirely different alphabets which looked like mere scribbles to him. After tiring of these Theo would often set the book aside and go back out again, returning the read the text the next day. Sometimes he would forge ahead, delving into the text the way an escaped prisoner might voraciously devour his first real leg of lamb. Other times the book would dicate a slower more removed pace, a lesuirely wander through the fields of the authors mind, whom Theo never hesitated to follow, whole heartedly and without question at least for the duration for the book. + +For Theo those afternoon spent in the house, pouring over his father's books without noticing the lengthing shadows moving across the room, slowly encasing the bookshelve and walls in darkness and then clear across the room, envelping the kitchen in twilight provided a way to escape the inevitability that haunted him the rest of the time -- the hard truth that his days were numbered and behind every cherished moment of peace there hung a vague but inescapable sense of dread. + +The only other time the dread left him was when he came home to find László and his father drinking and arguing about the very same books that Theo had read, trying to pinpoint for instance the precise actions of the Roman soldiers at Golgotha or the political implications inherent in the intermarriage of the English and Russian courts. During such conversation, when Theo would sit on his cot by the window listening, he always felt the sense of dread dissipate like the shadows in the electric-lit streets of Pest where his father often dragged him on weekend nights when the poets trumpeted their ideals in the street, the dance halls filled with flirtatious women and a bowl of mutton soup still cost a pittance. + +László was not the only one who stopped by to talk with his father, though he was the most interesting and one of the only that paid any attention to Theo and the only one whom Theo enjoyed listening to. László had a way of speaking that made you feel for a moment as if he might actually have been at Golgotha rather than simply have read about it. But László did not make early morning calls on the house. This morning was the first time Theo had ever recalled László arriving after dark. Strangers stopping by in the early hours of morning to visit with his father were not an event by themselves, at least once a week someone would rap on the door in the middle the night and then huddle around the nearly dead stove talking with his father in hushed whispers that Theo had long since learned to ignore, but this was the first time that the late night visitor had been none other than László himself. + +Grab us that bottle by the sink Theo. His father fumbles with the buttons on his pants and looks slightly ridculous with his long nightshirt hanging out the back like tails from a formal coat, but Theo stiffles his urge to laugh and retrieves the bottle, setting it in the middle of the table. He tiptoes over the his cot under the window and slips on his shoes before trudging down the stairs to let Laslo in. + +Outside the smells change and Theo catches a whiff of the sweet lilac water emilating from the still dark barbershop next door. To the east the horizen is beginning to shift from pure black to a light purple hues, hinting at the dawn that will come in a few hours. Theo smells the apricot trees down the street which began to blossom just last week and pauses to enjoy the sugary perfume while László whispers hello and moves past him, through the door and up the stairs. + +Theo lingers for a moment, catching sight of a dog slinking in the shadows, waiting perhaps for Theo to return inside before it would venture into the street to find the smeared fish heads tracked by the boatmen returning home last night. + +By the time he reaches the top the stairs the men's voices are beginning to escalate. + +He is not ready for such a thing. Theo's father turns, gesturing toward him as Theo approaches the stove. He is still a boy. + +In less than three years the entire continent will be at war and he will be thrown in the trenches. He won't be ready for that either. This is a chance at an education, a way to avoid the war that is coming. + +So you say. He father slumps down in the chair. + +What am I not ready for Papa? + +I have to go down the river Theo. László places his hand on Theo's shoulder. To Belgrade and then Bucharest and I want you to come with me, would you like to come? + +A thousand visions from his father's books and stories rush into the Theo's head at once and he is barely able to stammer, yes. + +László, he's only thirteen, + +I will look after him when he needs it. + +I'll be fourteen in two months, Theo announces proudly. + +His father pushes back the bowl of oranges, clearing the table in front of him to make room for the bottle of wine. Okay. He paused to fill his glass and takes a long swallow. Theo, you may go, but on one condition. You do not take him to Makariy. + +A grimace passes across László's face. I wouldn't dream of visiting that old fool, his time is far past. + +Okay then. Theo. Best pack your things. + +No need. László stands and pulls on his overcoat. Grab your coat. I will buy you anything else you might need. It is important that we leave at once, the boat is waiting. + +Must we leave now? Theo fights a sudden salty welling in his eyes. He looks at his father who suddenly seemed to age ten years before his eyes, an old man now, slumped lightly in his chair, nursing the glass of wine between his fingers. + +I'm sorry Theo, but we must. Don't worry your father will be here when we return in Autumn. You'll be saying hello again before long. + +Theo throws his arms around his father and lets out one sob, but his father pulls him back and looks in his eyes. Theo, you're a good boy. You're going to be good man. Remember that, no matter what happens. + +Yes Papa. + +Listen to what László tells you and I'll see you in the Fall. + +Yes Papa. + +Outside the chill of morning is fading and the dull purple sky already moving toward a lighter shade of violet. László walks briskly through the streets and Theo has to run occasionally to keep up with his long stride, but the the potential to replace vague impending doom with vague impending adventure propells him along even after his legs have already cast their vote for remaining home in Buda. + +The legs get an unexpected polling boost when Theo finally lays eyes on the boat docked under overhanging willows, lurking in the dark shadows of the shoreline as if ashamed to be seen in the full daylight of a public dock. Despite László's impecable tailoring and fine clothing, despite the endless supply of wine and food he has brought into their house over the years, the man does not seem to spend any money when it comes to transportation. Perhaps, it slowly dawns on Theo, the only reason László has the money to spend on clothes, food and drink, it because he never spends it anywhere else. Not only is the boat drastically smaller than Theo was expecting, it is old, the timbers rotting and even from the shore Theo can see peeling paint and the worm gnawed beams of the forecastle sticking out like bleached whalebones in the sun. It certainly isn't the seaworthy vessel he had invented on the walk down and it appears barely river-worthy. Theo's dreams of sacheting into Bucharest, one foot dancing off the edge of a proud steamer, arriving in port to the waving hanckerchiefs of a hundered fair maidens, are replaced by what will be very close to the truth. They will arrive he suspects suddenly like a crippled old fox, slinking desulutely under the cover of darkness, attended by none, partly, Theo suspects, because of the cargo on board, but at least as much perhaps by the boat's own sense of shame and need to hide in the dark shadows of the river like an frail old king sitting in the corner of the room with the curtains drawn. + +László never hestitates or breaks stride until he is over the gang plank and on deck, turning now to make sure Theo is still behind him. László shouts something and the old steam engine begins to roar, Theo steps around him and find a seats among the chicken cages and lumpy burlap sacks scattered around the aft deck. László glances hurriedly about the stern and then turns back to the shore issuing a deafeningly loud shrill whistle. The dark lurking dog that Theo had seen earlier on the street comes bounding out the shadows and races along the shore until its speed matches that of the boat and suddenly it is airborne, body eloganted, legs outstretched and falling slowly back as it losses speed until with one solid bounce it lands unperturbed on the aft deck next to Theo. It studies him for the moment with huge dark eyes, sniffing tenatively at his knees and then walks off slowly decending into the hold. + +The first few days aboard are a blur. Theo slowly learns what he can touch and where he can step or sit and what will draw angry stares, occasionally punctuated by shouts, from the two boatmen who seem particularly concerned with anything involving hemp. Theo largely confines himself to the bow, lying on the sunny foredeck watching the shoreline as an unbroken procession of trees slides past. Occasionally they will pass gypseys fishing on the bank or peasant girls doing laundry in fits of giggles as the ogling boatmen whistle catcalls from the wheelhouse. Theo's cheeks burn every time and he tries to lie flatter, wishing himself invisible or at least reasoning that if he can not see the girls then he won't have to meet their dark eyes in silence. Eventually the tree-lined banks give way to hills, now yellow seas in bloom, sunflowers, violets set atop meadows of sedge and quake grass rippling in the breeze. Later there are plowed fields with farmers sowing seed behind teams of oxen or mules and Theo can see the smoke from the chimneys of villages just out of sight. + +When the scenery begins to bore him, he plays dice games with László who proves uncannily good at rolling whatever he needs to win at any given moment, always chuckling and pausing to study Theo before he throws the dice. Or he talks to the shorter of the two boat men who is always addressed simple as András, though Theo feels certain that this is not his real name. András is lanky and awkwardly shy in manner, reminding Theo of his father. He has dark watery eyes and seems to enjoy Theo's curiosity about the boat. He gives him a tour, the majority of which Theo has already discovered on his own, save the engine room beneath the aft deck where the knocking pistons and vaporous heat that sends Theo back above deck gasping for breath, as though the air had been sucked out of his lungs. It's András who tells him the boat is named Élise and is over forty years old with what András will refer to only as a colorful history. + +At night they sleep in the hold, hammocks slung from rotted deck beams and permeated by a stale mustiness that chokes Theo's dreams down to muddled, dull experiences that lead nowhere. Chicken feathers poke at him while he sleeps and pitch of the boat rounding a bend in the river will send him crashing into the crate lined wall which never fails to embed even more splinters in to the canvas fabric of the hammock. He sleeps fitfully and wakes up unable to remember what happened in his dreams as if the muddy swirling eddies of the river were somehow creeping up through the hull, past the clanging bilge pump and into his head where they wash over his dreams like milk spilled on a watercolor. + +András seems better adjusted and often recounts his dreams to Theo while they sit on the back of the boat spooning János's sorry excuse for breakfast into their famished stomachs. + +Last night I dreamt we sailed through a flock of swans. András smacks his lips attempting the rid his teeth the starchy gruel that coats their mouths and leaves them with the consistancy of wallpaper paste. They were everywhere on the river, hundreds of them Theo. It was magnifescent. + +András, why do you whistle at the girls on the bank? + +András smiles. Well Theo, in part because I can, but also in part because part of our existence is a process of understanding and fitting in to our surroundings. If it were my boat, and I alon sailing it down this river, perhaps I would not whistle, but that's not the way it is Theo. And then again, perhaps I would Theo. Perhaps I would even left to my own devices because you must know Theo, no one whistles for the fgirls, we shistel for ourselves, to announce something to the world, to say that we suddenly enjoy our lives more than we did the moment before. Have you ever been with a girl Theo? + +Been with her? You mean like the men that go to the whorehouse on my street? + +Hmm. Yes, I suppose like that. Have you ever been in love Theo? + + + + +After a week Theo has given up any hope that that tomorrow's breakfast will be anything other than the same gruel and he come to accept his watery fish stew for dinner, marveling at the hard round bread that skips like a stone when Theo pitches it off the back of the boat. + +After dinner Theo likes to sit on the stern, feet dragging in the water, head thrown back, looking up at the kailescope of stars in the moonless sky. But his vision is interupted by the figure of László, who has, until now, largely ignored Theo for the past several days. + +Do you know anything of Belgrade Theo? + +Is it full of Turks? + +László laughs. Parts of it, but there's nothing wrong with Turks. Tomorrow evening we will be in Belgrade. We'll stay on the boat for the night and then I have errand to run the next day. András and János will look after you while I'm away. You must do what they say, do you understand? + +Yes sir. + +László glances toward the bow and lowers his voice. Actually, you can safely ignore János, he's a bit daft about the world outside this river, but stick close to András, he has a good soul. + + segue + +The next evening, as Theo suspects, they stop just out of sight of Belgrade and run the flat bottom of the boat aground on the left bank of the river. János waits until the stern swings around and the boat is pointing upstream before he secures the bowline to a tree and then they retire to the hold for the night. + +When Theo wakes up László is already gone. He climbs up out of the hold to see János pissing off the side of the boat into the river. + +Are you ready for a bit of fun Theo? János winks at him and Theo manages a small smile. + + + +scene at the whorehouse. expand description of András and János, János bald on top, long scraggly hair, crooked teeth short, barefoot, tattered pants, dirty shirt András tall thin thoughtful, kind + "Have you ever met an illegitimate princess? They;re better than the real thing Theo because they don't have to answer for what they do. Some of these women are princesses Theo, you just have to find it in them, they hide it, they do..." + + +László and the dog return to the boat, there is blood on the dogs mussle and paw, it settles down and begins to lick the blood from its fur. diff --git a/unseen/Book 1/buda3.txt b/unseen/Book 1/buda3.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b9a2f7f --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 1/buda3.txt @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ + + +Scene in Bucharest with the old man in the woods the fairy tale of water nymph and loss as forerunner of cynasim + + +The man is frequent vistor in the home for the four years that have passed between now and the scene above. Theo never sees the woman again and does not know what decame of her broach. + + where he had been idling, thinking about the funeral of the painter Munkácsy, so many years ago, but thinking not of the painter at all, but as he always has -- as the night he learned that things could disappear. Or, more properly, that things could be made to appear as if they disappeared - hidden in plain sight. + + +meets her on the street they go off to some park... + + Your father wants me to go down the river with him again next week. + Please don't call him that. + Okay, fine, Lazlo wants me to go down the river + If he were really my father, he would live with us. + In the palace. + It's not a palace. It's just big and cold. + At least it doesn't smell of fish. Theo picks up a stone near his foot and tosses it into the grass. + +... got out on a date, segue to river trip and chapter end
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/Book 1/buda4.txt b/unseen/Book 1/buda4.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f133b10 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 1/buda4.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +The return to Budapest and the letters to/from the princess
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Claire/1_tucson.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/1_tucson.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0f575f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/1_tucson.txt @@ -0,0 +1,821 @@ +Claire was still carting around her grandmother's ashes the day the bomb went off. She was eating toast, the little silver box in her purse caught her eye just as the windows began to rattle. + +The memorial service took place three weeks earlier, the first day after the rains stopped. The desert smelled of creosote, the rocks still looked wet and smooth, new. + +There was a sign at the top of the crest, yellow, black writing, the usual font. Beyond it the road ducked into the wash. Four crossroads downstream, nearly a mile and half by the river, police in yellow slickers leaned against their cars, huddled under umbrellas, smoking and staring out at the black desert somewhere beyond the halo of headlights. + +Claire arrived two days later. It was still raining. She watched the rivulets run down the window on the cab. An overweight woman at the precinct handed her a styrofoam cup of lukewarm coffee. Claire cupped it in her hands and looked past the officer's deliberate expression, at her own reflection in the window behind him, her eyes lost in shadow, her wet black hair matted against her pale throat. She watched the drops of water come together on the glass, as they slid down, bumping into each, a drop and then another and another until they became a tiny river. Later a stream, then a real river, gathering up all that fell in its path, boulders, trunks of trees, automobiles. She shivered. + +There were papers. Claire scratched at them with a pen. The man by the exit handed her a plastic bag of soggy artifacts, a pen, a pack of gum, a wallet with an expired Diner's Club card. Claire walked out into the night. The rain still fell. + +Back at the hotel she peeled off her sopping clothing and climbed into the shower, shaking despite the hot water on her back. She began to sob and could not stop, she sat down on the floor of the tub. Unable to tell her tears from the spray of water overhead, she became aware of only her sobbing, her breath heaving unevenly. + +After the water had gone cold she got out and dried off, wiped the black streaks from under her eyes. She flopped down on the bed naked, perching the ashtray on the flat expanse of her stomach. + +She opened the top drawer of the night stand and pulled out the Gideon Bible. She closed her eyes and let the pages fall open. Psalm 9. She propped herself up against the head board and began to twist a Winston between her fingers until the tobacco started to fall out, collecting in the open Bible. She slowly picked at a brown ball of hash that smelled faintly of sweaty feet. It was slow going with her nails, bitten down to the quick during nervous border crossing and fidgety soldiers with guns. Eventually she managed to extract a few tiny flecks of brown tar which fell amongst the shredded tobacco. She gently tore the page from the bible and tilted the ends to collect the tobacco and hash in the middle. Once it formed a reasonably tight cylinder she deftly twisted up the ends and lit it. + +The splatter of rain against the window sounded obscene in the silence of the room. There is a special hotel silence, a quiet not found in an ordinary house. A silence you can't quiet put your finger on, the absence of something, no ambient noise, no refrigerator humming, no quiet throb of half-burnt out light bulbs, no soft gurgles in the sink, just pure muffled quiet. Perhaps there are too many bedspreads in one room, too many abstract canvases covering the walls, too much press-board furniture in too small of a space, muting the little human sounds, the shuffling feet of tired travelers, the flick of a switch, the rustling of crisp sheets, all is lost in a hotel room. + +The hash made Claire restless and hyperaware of the dripping, tick-tock splatter of the rain. She got up and walked to the window, pulling back the curtain. The perfectly grated pebble landscape of the hotel grounds below looked like a giant kitty litter box in the yellow light of the gas lamps. + +The cacti were coated so thickly in the soot of biodiesel delivery trucks that even the rain could not completely wash it away. She could see the airport parking lot shrouded in a fog of rental car exhaust. At the other end of the courtyard a line of taxi cab tailpipes puffed in the rain, misting the sliding doors of the lobby. + +She smoked in the darkness, admiring the dull blue flicker of Plasmatic screens emanating from the rooms across the courtyard, fellow travelers like moths drawn in by the vibrating strobe of a blue candle warbling in the night air. + + + * * * + + +The next morning Claire set the air conditioner to high and, by the time she stepped out of the shower, the room felt a bit like her apartment in New York. Still no refrigerator hum, but at least the indoor weather suited her clothes. She sat on the bed, lit the remnants of her joint and stared at the black dress hanging in the closet. A gift from her grandmother, never worn. + +The smoke curled up to the ceiling. Claire rooted around in the mini bar until she found a tiny bottle of whiskey. Six years. A grimace as the whiskey slid down. Gamma was gone. Gone. Not coming over again, not making Angel Food Cake for her birthday. Not asking how school was. Not checking to make sure she was still in bed and hadn't snuck out again with Lisa Colbert or worse, Troy Williams. Claire smiled. And then it faded. Gone. + +She pushed the thoughts out of her head, wondering instead what what he might look like. The black suit seemed inevitable. The hair a little more silver, eyes a bit blacker perhaps, wrinkled around the edges from six more years spent squinting in the desert sun. His hands a bit more like soft leather, the skin looser. She pictured him worn down, perhaps become pale from too much time indoors, his skin maybe now closer to the pale white of her own. + +She went to the sink and washed the remainder of the joint down the drain. She raised her arms before the foggy mirror and watched as dark fabric fell down over her head, a slight wiggle and it swathed her body like a shadow. Her grandmother would have liked it. + +Dressed and satisfied with her makeup, Claire raised the blinds and the midday sun streamed in the room. She drank a Coke and smoked a cigarette, waiting for the front desk to call a cab. + +Claire didn't talk to her grandmother at all after she left for India. It wasn't until four years later, having been halfway around the world and back that she picked up the phone and called. She remembered standing in the tiny kitchen of her New York apartment, fiddling nervously with the knobs of her stove while she dialed the number with her other hand. There had been a lot of crying, a lot of silence. Her grandmother saying over and over, I forgive you, I forgive you. She could see her grandmother through the phone, her hands fidgeting with the knobs of her own, much larger, stove. Two years later Claire was woken in the middle of the night by another call. + +A businessman already sitting at the bar turned to stare as Claire walked through the lobby. She pulled the sweater over her shoulders despite the heat, trying to look more demure, funereal, to hide the sanscrit on her shoulder. She settled into the back seat of the taxi and handed the address to the driver who plugged it into his tracker. + +Waiben did not answer the door. Claire was let in by a woman claiming to be her great-aunt, twice-removed, by marriage. The foyer was already crowded. Claire begged her way through, pretending to look for a bathroom. She ducked through the kitchen and went upstairs to the landing where she could see everyone below. He was there, the black suit was there. Otherwise he looked the same, perhaps a bit more silver in the hair, but remarkably unaged. Claire suddenly felt self-conscious, thinking she must surely have aged more noticeably. He did not see her at first, but then she began to stare in spite of herself, she could feel the room shrinking down to nothing, some invisible force compressing space, squeezing out the air from her lungs. She was wishing herself invisible, thinking of how to move through the crowd like one of Waiben's shadow particles, its mass visible only by watching those that gather and part around it. And then he glanced up at her. She turned and walked down the hall to the bathroom. + +Claire spent most of the quiet memorial service by herself, at the back of a crowd of people in folding chairs. Waiben had decked out the garden for the occasion, unlit tea lights hung by wire from palo verde trees, ocotillo bushes bloomed red flowers from their thorny branches. Along the outside edge of the chairs landscapers had installed a series of enormous clay pots full of milkweed and native thistles with yellow and purple flowers. + +Claire tried to listen to the eulogies, having declined to give her own, but she could only hear her own cruel, teenage voice echoing in her head, all the words that you can never, no matter how many phone calls, really retract. The words might not have lived on with the people you spoke them to, who knew already that you did not mean them, but they never left you, you had to keep chewing them over and over again. A potent mixture of cringing embarrassment and self-loathing washed over her as she listened to her grandmother's friends speaking softly through their tears. By the time Waiben got up to talk Claire could no longer hold her head up, nor did she feel much like eye contact with anyone, let alone him. She pretended to watched a Canyon Wren flitting around a particularly rotund barrel cactus, bouncing from the plump yellow flowers to the sandy ground and back, chasing some invisible thing. Its watery black eyes paused from time to time to take in the people, the dry salt trails of cheeks, the rustle of black chiffon, the creak of bones. She could feel the evening cool descending, a tuft of wind ruffled the wren and in a brown streak it disappeared into the sky only to return again after the service, as Claire stood as a parade of faces passed by in single file, the cool, wrinkled skin of her grandmother's friends clasping her hands and murmuring condolences before fading back into the house and out to their cars, the bird still hopping back and forth, undecided, chasing some phantom insect forever beyond its hooked beak. + +Claire stayed out on the patio long after the last mourner was gone. She walked through the cactus garden, noticing a few new additions, a few missing. It was becoming hard to tell where the garden ended and the desert began. Claire had the passing thought that perhaps, with enough momentum behind her, she might run straight off the ridge Waiben's house rested on, across the patio and the stone wall that marked the beginning of the garden, perhaps catching a favorable updraft and darting out over the desert like the vanished wren. + +She could hear his voice drifting out the sliding glass door before she was back up on the patio. Waiben was talking to the lawyer that had tried twice, unsuccessfully, to corner Claire and get her to agree to a time and place for all the necessary paperwork, as he put it. She heard Waiben say, we'll just take care of it all right now, and breathed a sigh of relief. There would be no ceremonious meeting, no reunion as Claire had been picturing in her walk through the garden, as she had been dreading ever since that first night, when she had stopped crying and realized that she was going to have to see him again. Claire slipped quietly in the side door and leaned back against it, closing it softly. A robotic sweeper rushed past her feet, swallowing up the trail of dust and sand the visitors left behind. + +She could hear Waiben and the lawyer walking around, presumably looking for her. The clatter of footsteps on the clay tiles echoed through the house. Finally Claire heard the clinking of ice cubes being dropped in glasses, and, steeling herself, she walked around the corner and ran headlong into the lawyer sending his drink down the front of his suit and his glass hurling through the air. + +After the lawyer changed shirts and Claire managed to get the excess of blood out of her cheeks, Waiben fixed up another round of tequila and then another and then another and finally the lawyer started in with house deeds, manuscript donations, bank accounts, bonds, securities, stock portfolios, charity organizations. Claire watched it blur by, signatures, papers in handsome faux leather folders, keys, business card, handshake and he was gone. + +She was outside before the front door closed. She sat on the edge of the patio and lit a cigarette. Distant thunderheads were forming over the Rincon mountains, obscuring the sunset. + +Waiben appeared beside her without a sound, her refilled glass extended in his hand. She took it. She noticed their fingers did not touch. + +He gestured to the small tin box on the table, beneath the photo of her grandmother with the garland wreath draped over it. The little box of ashes. Claire flicked her cigarette ash on the concrete and watched as wind carried it out over the gravel until it was battered to nothing. + +Claire picked up the little box of ashes. It was strangely heavy, not at all like the cigarette ash. She wanted to look inside, to see what she too might one day be reduced to, but she didn't want Waiben to see her. She wasn't sure if it was right to look at your grandmother's ashes. She wasn't sure at all what she was supposed to do with them. The lawyer had already made it clear that just scattering them to the wind was not, no matter how appealing it might have sounded, legal in any way shape or form. Claire was surprised, though not so much now that she'd had the time to process it, to learn that remains, even ashes, were considered a biohazard. + +Where do you think I should put these? Claire held the little tin box up suggestively, half-hoping Waiben would volunteer to keep them. + +Waiben took another sip of tequila, cleared his throat, shrugged his shoulders. + +Claire stared at the ice in her glass, willing it to melt. She wanted to tell him, she wanted to know what he thought. Her voice was on the verge of cracking. She spoke slowly, hoarsely. She lived here since she was sixteen... she knew not to drive in that arroyo. The police officer at the station wouldn't look me in the eye. They think she killed herself. + +Waiben didn't respond. + +You really think it was an accident? + +I don't know Claire. Is it important? + +Is it important? Fuck yes I think it's important. It's one thing to die, naturally or otherwise, it's a whole other thing to kill yourself... I just can't see gamma being able to do it, but. + +Waiben sighed and tossed the watery remains of his drink on a cactus. I don't want to seem unkind Claire, but your grandmother was capable of far more than you give her credit for. + +What does that mean? + +It means... It doesn't mean anything. It just means that she was more than your grandmother. That she had a life before you that you know nothing about. That I know nothing about. Neither one of us knows very much about her because we both knew her. + +I know something about her. I know she hated your fucking guts. + +Waiben smiled. Is that what you think? + +It's not what I think, it's what I know. + +Claire, you're confusing her protectiveness of you with a dislike of me. Your grandmother did not dislike me, she disliked you being around me. Important difference. + +Claire didn't respond, she had turned her back on him and was watching the night arrive over the Catalinas. She heard Waiben sigh a bit too heavily, she knew it was mainly for her benefit, and then the sound of the door opening and closing. She flicked the remainder of her cigarette into the garden and followed him inside. + +I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... + +He waved his hand, the other reaching for the tequila. + +I just. I just don't know how to this. Do we act like friends? Like we've always been friends? Like we've never been anything more? Am I supposed to not remember you naked? I am I not supposed to accidentally remember what you feel like inside of me because I remember another time you kept pouring drinks except they weren't tequila, they were cashew whiskey and then we had sex on the roof of that apartment building in Udiapur and I remember trying to think about how good it felt but mostly thinking about a rock that was digging into my hip the whole time...? + +Waiben started to laugh and then seeing that Claire wasn't finding it funny yet, he checked himself. Though not before he noticed her start to smile. + +Don't look at me like that. She turned her head away. I wasn't bringing up sex so you would want it, I was trying to figure out how this works. + +I don't know how it works Claire. I remember things too. Out of place. Out of context... And yes those things make no sense here, your grandmother, us, this house, this.... I don't know what you want Claire.... + +She turned to face him again, the humor faded from her eyes. Does it matter what I want? I don't want anything. + +He sighed and turned away. + +What do you want? + +I wanted to see you. Not like this exactly, but I guess I got what I wanted. + +You always did. + +Not always. + +No. + +Claire felt the past hanging around them, like the quiet air in an abandoned house, air that wants to move but simply can't, can't do anything but be quiet and still. I see you on the news sometimes... + +A smiled passed over his face, Claire felt something in him relax. + +Good or bad? + +She shrugged and tried to stall, well, hmm, a lot of people seem to think you're going to bring about the end of the world as we know it. That's impressive. + +He smiled and looked down, tracing the tip of his shoe in an invisible arc across the Spanish tile. And you? + +I don't think you want to end the world, but sometimes you can be awfully blind and stubborn.... + +Claire. + +What? It's true. You never believed I would leave you. + +Because I thought you loved me. + +I did. + +Then why... + +Because I needed to. But that's not the point, the point is I hope you're more aware and cautious with this experiment. If you're really trying to do what they say you're trying to do then, good god, I mean, what if you're wrong? + +If I'm wrong nothing happens he snapped. + +Right. Claire walked over and poured herself another drink. The tequila was beginning to make its way through her body, a warmth in the belly, a slight fuzziness in the temples... + +So. + +So. + +Crazy weather around here I hear... + +Yes. Well. I've been in Kuchchri fulltime for nearly a year so I actually wasn't here, but I read about it. + +You're living there now? + +Yes. I tried going back and forth for a while, but it... at some point it didn't make sense anymore... You'd be amazed, it looks nothing like when we were there. + +Is that good? + +Hmm. Not really? I miss the beginning. + +Everyone always misses the beginning. + +True. He swirled his drink and threw his head back swallowing the rest of the tequila in a single gulp. He started to pour another but then he paused. I can show you what you've been missing if you want. + +What I've been missing? + +In India. You must miss it sometimes? + +Claire smiled. Sometimes. + +She followed him up the smooth wooden stairs, down the hallway with its overlapping Moroccan rugs, dizzying patterns that still gave Claire a sense of vertigo as she walked by, into his office. It had changed. The bookshelves were gone, the books no doubt, like the artwork no longer on the walls, long since shipped off to India. There was just a couch and desk with an old wooden swivel chair. The barrenness of the room felt oppressive, like she was intruding on a past that did not want her. + +Waiben went to his desk and fiddled with a laptop. Claire sat down with a creaking scrunch on the leather couch facing the windows. She put her eye to the telescope just in front of her, curious about its trajectory, downward, away from the heavens to the desert below. She was both surprised and not to find a distant neighbor's swimming pool filling the lens. + +Claire was seventeen the first time she set foot in Waiben's office. She was wearing a bathing suit and dripping water from his pool on the dark oak floors and multi-colored Indian rugs. It was a warm day, the floors dried while Claire was in the shower, rising off the chlorine. She had only recently dropped out of high school and spent her days by the pool, worrying about why she didn't worry about the future. She was hiding the dropping out from her grandmother, though she was still going to night school, which was moderately better than spending her days staring out the windows of an asbestos-filled building at Flowing Wells High School. She had few friends to miss, just Lisa Colbert who lived down the street and few boys she had allowed to talk her into going for drives, which inevitably ended in the foothills full of awkward groping and sweaty hands. For Claire the only real problem with dropping out of high school was that there was nothing to to during the day. Until Waiben and his pool came along. She had already decided to try getting a tan. Claire was not good at sleeping and she had spent too much time staring her pale skin in the late night light of the bathroom mirror, trying to figure out where she was inside it and had decided it looked sickly, that it would be easier to understand if it were brown. + +She had started at the YMCA pool. No one accosted her, no one asked why she wasn't in school. But the old men touching themselves in the YMCA hallways soon drove her to sneak into the pool at the La Quinta resort in the foothills. At the resort no one asked why she wasn't in school because they assumed she was on vacation with her family. It worked well enough for two weeks. And then one day she was on bus, headed up to the La Quinta with a fresh supply of magazines when she saw her name on a building. Curious, she got out a few blocks later and walked back to the building, which turned out to be the University of Arizona's planetarium. She stood under the sign, staring up at her father's name and, for the first time since her parent's funeral, she began to cry. She cried most of the afternoon, sitting alone with her pale skin in the planetarium darkness. Later, as the sun was setting outside, she skipped night school and wandered through the halls of the science department, trying to imagine which office might have been her father's. She could almost see him, her cloudy eight-year-old memories rendering now with more clarity than she had ever dared to allow them. She saw him wearing a corduroy jacket, glasses sliding down his nose, a folder of papers in one hand, walking down the hallway of her childhood home lost in thought until he noticed her -- hey, Clairebear, whatcha doin? You wanna see a magic trick? -- And then he would tuck the folder of papers under his chin to free up a hand, and pull out his tattered handkerchief. With an exaggeratedly formal and awkward bow (on account of the folder full of term papers) he would wave the handkerchief about with great ceremony and then ball it up in his hand and somehow proceed to pull out all manner of stuffed animals, toys, books, household utensils, even her long lost baby tooth which he had somehow stolen back from the tooth fairy... And she could picture him here too, walking the halls, no Clairebear to interrupt him, no one clamoring for magic. He could pace endlessly, reading through a stack of papers as he went, crashing into anyone who wasn't alert enough to get out of his way, or perhaps eating one of his peanut butter and banana sandwiches, honey leaking out the side, running down his hand and dribbling on the carpet just as it did at home. She began to look for the telltale signs in the carpet under her feet. There was the occasional dark stain, a spot of black on the otherwise mottled blue carpet, but nothing that made her shoes stick, no trace of honey remaining. + +She was headed for the back door when she spied a light on at the end of a dead end hall. She tiptoed down to the doorway and peered through the crack in the door to see a man about her father's age bent over an ancient laptop computer, pecking at the keyboard in a way that bore no resemblance to anything a normal person would have regarded as typing, but seemed, from the steady stream of green type on the screen, to be producing words. Claire slowly stepped back and was preparing to tiptoe down the hall when his voice boomed through the door, if you want to spy on me, you'll have to do better than that. Show yourself. The figure spun around in its swivel chair and regarded the darkness of the hallway. + +Claire crept back around the corner and pushed open the door. She was midway through a hurried apology when she heard her name and looked up from the floor to find a very flustered Dr. Waiben shocked, mouth agape, Claire? He repeated. + +How do you know my name? + +I, um, Good god it's you... Here, here, he leaped up, kicked a stack of papers and a filing box to the floor revealing a desk. Sit. Sit. She sat. He sat. So, you really are... + +Do I know you? + +Know me, uh, no, no you do not. + +Then how do you know me? + +I knew your father... + +You worked with him? + +Ha. Work, er, Waiben was fidgety and awkward, work, well, yes, we did um, work together. We looked for thing... we made things... he was my friend... + +I don't remember you... + +Oh, you wouldn't Claire, you were just a uh, you were just a girl... I never, I don't get out much... + +Claire's instinct was to bolt out of the room, the conversation was simply too weird to bear, but slowly Waiben began to calm down and compose himself. Eventually he launched into a series of stories about her father. + +Claire listened, some of the stories even sounded familiar, she reasoned she had probably overheard her father's versions. Waiben went on and began to talk about projects, physics and other things Claire did not care to follow. She started glancing around the office, more of a cave really. A cave in which some crazed bear had decided to store all the remaining paper in the world. Behind Waiben's head, rising out of the sea of papers on a set of strange, waxy black shelves was a stuffed lemur, its bright, but very dead eyes staring at Claire. Beside it were various other slightly grotesque zoological ephemera, reptiles in formaldehyde, a coiled rattlesnake, a horned lizard with its forelegs pressed against the jar, a scaly gila monster, its beaded orange and brown faded by the glare of afternoon sun, a stuffed Toucan decaying on a broken palo verde branch, its gnarled scaly feet now held in place by wrapped metal wire. Higher up on the shelves there were fossilized trilobites propped on plastic stands and the ghost image of a fern embedded in shale. She shuddered at the sight of a blind newt sitting on the top shelf its head poked over the shelf, the regressive eye sockets covered by a fine milky fold of proto skin that did nothing to stop it from staring down at her, blind but knowing. + +Waiben seemed entirely unsurprised when Claire hesitantly told him that she had dropped out of school. He merely nodded, as if this was to be expected and asked what she did instead. When she mentioned she was wandering Tucson's pools by day, he insisted she come up to his house and use his. It just sits there all day, doing nothing, a total waste of university money, he smiled. They pay for the thing, it's a beautiful house, supposed to be for the president, but he already had an even more beautiful house, so I got this one. Claire just smiled and tried to pretend she did not notice Waiben's frequent glances at her legs, the milky white skin swinging back and forth as her feet dangled off the desk. She tried to tuck them under in the shadows of the desk, willed them to turn brown at least. She did not mind Waiben's glances so much as she minded her knobby white legs. + +It was a week before she decided she didn't care if Waiben was going to try to seduce her, she needed a private pool. She didn't call, but Waiben seemed entirely unfazed by her appearance at the front door. And the pool was, as advertised, quite nice, complete with a rock waterfall that fed in cool water, several floating chairs and a smaller jacuzzi off to the side. She decamped for the day. Waiben left for work not long after she arrived. There was no seducing, at least not on his part. Claire more or less had her very own, very large house with a swimming pool, cactus gardens, not to mention the robots and gadgetry that wouldn't be in the average home for another two years. She changed into her bathing suit and headed out to the pool with a Coke, a box of Twizzlers and a handful of magazines. + +Waiben was still setting up the link to the collider. Claire pressed her eye to the telescope and swept the lens up from the pool to the side of the mountain where dozens of new tract housing projects dotted the hillside. She saw an endless sea of scalloped terra cotta tiles and glowing blue windows of I2 monitors. She wasn't accustomed to seeing so much electricity being used so openly. The rolling blackouts in New York meant nighttime jaunts through I2 were a thing of the past. But here, in the desert, with solar arrays covering half the land between here and the border in Yuma, electricity was still everywhere. I2 glowed in nearly every living room window she could see, the cool blue light flickering as people roamed the streets of the digital world. + +Waiben was mumbling at the screen. Sorry, I'm having some trouble locating Kali, something about the proxies. + +Kali? + +My primary AIdaemon, kalis-23.in.amalthea.net. + +You're accessing an AIdaemon from here? + +Well, that's what the proxy bit is about, send the signal into an anonymizer, come out, connect to Kali and no one's the wiser. Except that it takes a while to set up. + +You don't worry about the possible consequences? + +Waiben shrugged. I'm an Indian national now and pretty high profile. They aren't going to disappear me. At worst I'll get deported and won't have to wait in the security lines in departure. Waiben glanced up from his screens and smiled. The computer beeped at him. I found it. Claire pushed the telescope away. + +A strange synthetic voice said, identify, please. + +Sorry. Hang on. Waiben put his thumb on the print reader and then the voice intoned, welcome Dr. Waiben, and who is your guest. + +This is Claire, she's approved. + +Noting that in the logs. + +Strike it from the logs Kali. He turned to Claire, I don't feel like telling the whole story when I get back. + +Very well, log deleted. What can I do for you? + +Watch this. Waiben smiled. He picked up a remote and pressed a button. The window in front of Claire went black and then flickered as it filled up with tiny white lines of code. The code flashed by in unreadably fast blasts and then an image of the Indian desert filled the window. Waiben walked over and sat down beside her, careful to leave a significant portion of the middle cushion between them. + +Kali, zoom and center please. Waiben's voice was unnaturally high pitched and he was over-enunciating the words, but Kali did not hesitate, zooming the camera down toward an enormous clearing. It was just after dawn in India, the sun streaked long soft shadows westward from very building and hill. Claire watched the shadows shorten, a perfectly discernable process when on was as near to the equator as the ten square miles on the the screen was. She had once walked over this desert, populated with small sand dunes, prickly pear with bright pink fruit, curious hard black beetles that had once crawled all over her skin while she slept on the sand, half wrapped in blankets. + +Waiben asked Kali to zoom again and it did, training its sights on a large shimmering building made almost entirely of glass. It looked alien, like some spacecraft had landed there in the middle of the desert, so out of place amidst the mud and stone houses that dotted the desert around it. + +It looks like the World's Fair came to town. + +Waiben smiled. It did. In a way. A bit more like gold rush I think. Or what I imagine a gold rush would be like. He shook his head and seemed lost in thought for a moment. Claire watched the creases at the edges of his eyes furrow and unfurrow and then the eyes brightened. You really should have stayed. Sometimes in the evenings when I'm stuck or just need to get outside for a bit I walk around the desert. Near where we used to camp. There are huge tent camps all around that area now. People coming from all over India hoping to find work. the camps are pretty squalid things, tents is an exaggeration I suppose. More like scrapyards turned into sleeping structures. And stores. Little carts selling dosas, samosas. You should have stayed for the food Claire. Ten times as many street food options as when you left. Well, no real streets I guess, but still the food. + +He paused. She smiled, but did not indulge his half-hearted attempt at what she suspected was some sort of nostalgic mental stroll, probably exactly the same thing he did when we walked around the tent cities, or scrap cities. It was a sleepy little town. She stood up and zoomed the camera. She could see the smoke of fires drifting out the scrap city out over the desert. She could picture all the Indian people, desperate for work, for something, coming like moths to a roaring camp fire, some finding what they were after, others blown right back out like ashes, drifting off into the desert. + +It was a sleepy town. No one did anything they didn't have to do. That's what I liked about it. She sat back down on the couch and faced him, leaning back against the arm. + +Waiben met her eyes for the first time that night. Well, it's not that any more. There are jobs now. People have money, they can buy the things they need. + +Do they really need them? + +Waiben's grimaced. Really Claire, those people didn't do anything because they didn't have anything. Remember our guide that first night on dunes? He didn't know what Nikes were. He lived on ten dollars a month. Don't try to paint that as some Rousseau paradise. You were there. You know. And we've changed their lives yes, but for the better. The India Airship Company that everyone is racing to copy? That's never going to work. The only reason the India Airship Company is profitable is because we paid their operating costs for the first six months. They brought in workers when the train tracks were buried and the spring sand storms. And I've tried hard to use local construction contracts, to help the local economy. Sometimes it's hard. Indian politick is a labyrinth and I'm not allowed into. Sometimes a first cousin's brother's nephew from Bombay shows up when I thought I was getting a local foreman. Sometimes no one shows up. + +Well, as long as they haven't picked up your work ethic. Claire smiled + +No. Generally speaking no. I have a few people that I consider reliable, but most of the complicated work is still done by the ex-CERN people. + +Under there? Claire gestured toward the screen, where the alien spaceship of a building sat gleaming in the morning light, but seemingly empty. It looks like no one shows up when you're not there. + +Waiben looked back at the screen. Oh that. That wasn't my idea. Some Indian architect won a contest and got to design the building. Hideous modernness isn't it? And all glass in the middle of a desert. Brilliant. No one works in there. It's was too expensive to cool so we moved everything underground. The plants like it, but you can't really see them from space. + +Claire tried to imagine Waiben in the subterranean world of apricot-tinged light that she had seen in the documentary films. Waiben in his office, toucan and blind newt on the shelves, him going over schematics, supervising the installation of magnets, super-cooled brass piping, copper piping. The army of engineers and workers at his beck and call, or at least she imagined they would be at his beck and call... to do do what? The goal, as Claire understood it, was to not just smash atoms as as older colliders had done, but to create universes, pulling energy out of higher dimensions by smashing together their shadows in this one. Practically speaking the plan to create a new source of energy, something beyond oil, beyond solar, something that could power half the world from a single source. It was either that or go back to airships, but so far that idea hadn't proved practical outside of India. + +Still get a lot of protestors? + +Well, unfortunately some people still think that accessing other dimensions directly will somehow harm this one. + +And you still don't. + +No. Why would I? The math simply doesn't allow for that. We've run countless simulations and formulas to predict all sort of outcomes. That's why I'm in India. If I were here, with no AI, I'd still be crunching numbers in a supercomputer somewhere. I've run more simulations for this collider than all the simulations run for all the colliders in the past combined. + +And you don't think there's any chance you're wrong? That the simulations are wrong? + +Waiben put down the remote and turned toward her. She could see pain in his eyes. Claire, dear god, please don't tell me you've fallen in with protestors? + +Claire smiled. No. Well, not for their reasons anyway. But what if they're right, just for the wrong reasons? + +What do you mean? Christ Claire for every person over there protesting there's a different reason. You should hear some of the things I've heard. There's a whole legion of Americans there, the idiots waiting for the alien ships to pop out of some other dimension or some nonsense. They brought crystals and they meditate and hum. I certainly hope you're not planning to join them. + +All I said was what if the protestors happen to be right, even if their reasoning if wrong? + +That would imply that you have some other reasoning that you think is right. + +No. Not really. Or nothing original anyway. I'm just not so sure you should go through with this.... She hesitated, not because I think it's going to destroy the universe, or this dimension or whatever, that's nonsense, but I am worried about what happens if you actually can access this dark world, or dimension or whatever. + +What do you mean? + +Who ends up controlling it? You? The Indian government? The Plasmatic corporation? What happens when ELO terrorists take over the building? What happens if the Protectorate gets a hold of your plans and builds their own? What if someone else figures out how to weaponize it? What if it turns into another arms race, everyone building their own? + +Waiben smiled. All things I've run simulations on. You really need to get out that hell hole in New York Claire, you're living in the past, AI is capable of things you haven't even dreamed of yet... + +Like what? + +Waiben smiled. I can't talk about that here. + +Is this place bugged? + +Probably. + +That's convenient isn't it? + +Come to India with me Claire, I'll show you. He rested his hand on top of hers. + +No. Let's not do this, please. + +Waiben sighed and pulled his hand away. He turned back to the screen which, somehow, in the middle of their conversation had drifted over to include a view of the tiny house they had once called home. + +Claire looked at it, tried to remember what it had felt like, but it seemed to her to have happened in another life, something she had read about in a story. She remembered Tucson. She remembered the day it became apparent that the Secession Act was going to pass. She remembered Waiben staring tensely at the TV then announcing he was not going to stick around and watch everything go to shit. She was almost twenty by then. So they had left. Decamped to India which had been courting Waiben and the collider project for several years. For a time everything was magic. A new world, the feeling that something was happening was infectious. The lived outside the chaos of the African oil wars, the breakup of the States, the creation of the Protectorate, all of it. Or almost all of it. When Russia cut off India's oil it brought the country to grinding halt. No oil meant no machinery, no electricity. The Indian government had been waiting for the Russian oil shoe to drop for some time, but it would still over a year before the grid was back up and running. In the mean time the desert sun beat down and there was no escape, not even a fan to move the hot, stagnant air of their house. Though she never blamed the heat, it was in the midst of the second summer that Claire began to sour on India, Waiben and herself. By the time she left Claire saw it as just another desert, slightly different plants, camels instead of horses, the mountains of the Pakistani border instead of the Catalinas, but still a desert, still her in the middle of it, feeling lost, like a spectator of her own life, merely watching what she was doing, not actually doing it. + +They both stared at the screen, at the roof they had shared so many meals on. One of my engineers lives there now Waiben said absently. + +Claire did not respond. + +I've moved over here, Waiben stood up and touched the screen, flicking it over several houses and then asking the daemon to switch to the internal cameras. + +You record the inside? + +Waiben shrugged. Contract requirement. There are perks that offset it. + +Waiben zoomed around the house. Claire thought about the last day she had been in India. A day identifiable to both of them as simply that day. Every timeline must have markers, watersheds at which events seem to begin and end, even if in truth there is always another day, the day before, the day before and never-endingly the day before. Eventually you must pick one and mark it. Maybe it ended that day. Maybe it ended earlier. That day was the result of other days, other choices. Like the day Waiben stopped writing his increasingly lengthy notes on books he believed she should read, things she should research in I2 and started making excuses that kept him home in the mornings, particularly warm spring mornings, when the desert sun was not yet too hot for the pool and Claire put on her bathing suit and lay in the sun with a glass of juice or peeled an orange as she read a book. Mornings Waiben spent upstairs, in this very office, finding excuses to look out the window, telling himself he was just glancing at the desert, just scanning the skyline, just, just. That day was the result of a series of choices, the flawed belief that you could make a thousand tiny little choices without ever needing to worry about the cumulative consequences. That day was the result of all his previous days. All her previous days. All of everyone's previous days, centuries and centuries of tiny decisions from billions and billions of people leading to a single moment in time. Every single moment in time, but more so that day. And yet now, here in front of her, the very house, the very landscape, very nearly that day, and yet it felt utterly unreal, it was a picture on a window, the glass opaque and blocking whatever might lie beyond with some vision of what came before. + +They sat in silence, the gulf between them too enormous now for death or deserts to span. The sun slipped behind the mountains, its memory played out on the clouds. Claire turned away from the telescope and stood. Waiben stood up beside her, they turned to face as the last light painted a streak of cloud in softly bruised purple, a black eye across the western skyline. For the first time she saw the years between them, the sag of skin around his wrist that she had never noticed before. He reached out and embraced her, his warm body pressed against her now in a feeling of defeat, of surrender far more complete than any he had given before. The evening shrunk now to night, pulling in reserve what remained, hunkering down in canyons and valleys, a laughing wind among the cottonwoods, waiting out the night. By the time the cab reached the city, streetlights washed the sand with a warm sodium glow. Claire sat silent, her fingers tightened around the box of ashes. + + + * * * + + +There was no one in the lobby as Claire walked through. A monitor scrolled a news ticker and flashed video updates in silence. Opening her room she felt a reassuring rush of cold air, like climbing out the the subway on a crisp January day. She took a shower. She lay down on the bed, and rolled a hash cigarette with another page from the Bible. When it went out she pulled another cigarette from the pack and lit. And then another. And another. + +She sat cross legged on the freshly made bed, the polyester of the cheap comforter scratching at her legs. The I2 was off, but Claire stared at it anyway, it was the focal point of the room after all. She stared at her reflection, sitting on the bed. She thought of Waiben's story about the mirror world. You've never heard of the mirror world? he asked as if the imaginary world were something everyone would be familiar with. They were in his office at the university, long before India, long before they began their affair. Claire had stopped by to ask him some questions about her father's book, a textbook on astrophysics, the orbit of planets, gravity wells, event horizons, worm holes. Words she had absorbed from a million places but never bothered to understand. Waiben helped her some, but he often detoured off into stories. + +The mirror world is a place just like Earth, it's a parallel earth if you will, and it isn't a mirror world because it mirrors ours, it's a mirror world because, well, you'll see. So it's like our world, but little things are different. For instance in the mirror world you might be boy, I might be a woman, and there were other things, cultural differences. There is no concept of God in the mirror world, no invisible thing out there to settle accounts, nothing that you must justify your silences to, your silences are simply your own to understand, or not. But one the of the consequences of the absence of God is the worship of mirrors. The mirror world people do not believe that mirrors are strictly reflections of themselves, rather they're glimpses of something very similar to ourselves, some other place, some other person that is like us, looks like us, reflects our movements, but not our thoughts, not our experience save for those moments when they mimic us in the mirror. So of course there are no mirrors in the daily life of these people. Mirrors are only in the temples where people go to observe their doubles, to spy on the other world. To know yourself is impossible, so many competing voices, but to know the other you is merely the perfection of imagination. Stare into the mirror and know. Whatever could possibly happen to you has already happened to the imagined you in the mirror, still a reflection, but a reflection of infinite possibilities. What is merely pleasant in this life has already become pleasure to the one inside the mirror. The priests had the most difficult job since they had the temptation to stare into the mirror all day and of course that's just what some of them did, mashing their skin at first, just to see how far the double image would go in mimicking them. And then some started to abuse themselves. Cutting skin, self-mutilation, self-flagellation. And of course the mirror image did the same and in the end some died, but then that posed an interesting problem -- did they die from their own wounds or did they die because they inflicted mortal wounds on their double? + +Waiben paused to take a drink from his spiked coffee mug. + +So which was it? + +Well, no one was ever able to prove either case to everyone's satisfaction. + +What happened then? + +It was all hushed up the way priests and secret societies do those sorts of things, can't let that sort of quandary drift out into the public mind you know. Chaos ensues. People start showing up at the temples at all hours of the night doing god knows what in front of the mirror... + +The thought of it now made her smile. She still caught herself at strange moments during the day -- waiting in line at the food bank, staring at the black glass windows, or late at night watching the street fires reflected in her apartment window -- wonder still if it was the double in the mirror that killed them or their own wounds. She knew it was silly and yet somehow she had never been able to escape it. She wondered about her grandmother's double, had it too died when the water and debris broke her body apart? Or, because there was no mirror to reflect it did she, the other grandmother, simply go on as she always had? Did she too have a Claire that abandoned her? Claire thought of the day she had finally told her grandmother she had dropped out of school. There would be no graduation, no ceremonial way to mark the passage between school girl and whatever came after. There would just be a sheet of paper neither of them would ever open, just a diploma in the mail that no one cared about. Claire sensed that she had somehow wronged the gods of passage, but it was simply the way it was. Perhaps the girl in the mirror had a graduation, some nice ceremony, some gifts, a new dress, maybe she was rich, a car, a boyfriend to kiss her late at night after the party was over and everyone had gone to bed, someone with whom she could fumble awkwardly because neither of them knew what they were doing. + +For Claire everything had been marked by someone who did not fumble, or did with words, but not when it came to taking off bras, deciding what to do today, tomorrow, the next day until she realized that few of her decisions were her own, and even the ones she thought she had made were colored by someone else. She began to retrace four years of her life looking for something she was sure she had wanted and came up empty. Terrified, she realized she had to do something that was purely her, her own fumbling. It wasn't until she decided to leave him that she understood what it meant to fumble, to wonder, to be unsure. She had already followed Waiben all the way to India. That day began in the evening, she had gone into town on her own, had dinner at Trio, a rooftop restaurant overlooking the desert to the west. She could see the shabby Indian apartment they shared. She ate her tandoori and watched the sun set. It was gorgeous and yet she felt nothing inside. She started packing her bags the minute she got home. Waiben arrived before she had finished. The conversation was a kind of fumbling, quickly disintegrating through shock, the pleading, then yelling. Her yelling had been unkind, but she never thought to apologize for telling him he had hypergraphia, and ought to seek a doctor, not a collider, but a goddamn doctor that can straighten your fucking egotistical head trip out from the reality the rest of us are living in. It had shut him up at least, but then she looked up from her bag and saw the look of pain in his eyes, saw that she was not just leaving him, but abandoning him, abandoning them, abandoning the private world they had lived in for so long, just the two of them, a little battle hardened unit against the world, the unseen support on which everything depended, abandoning him in it, alone in a private world that no one else could ever enter, stuck forever or forced to likewise leave it behind. She felt herself falter. Claire felt finally that she was fumbling with her own life, knew that she could choose right now, right here, in this singular moment between two entirely different lives and for a moment she almost stayed, but she knew deep down that she had to do it or she would spend the rest of her life wondering why she hadn't. She picked up a clay statue of Ganesh, hurled it at his head, grabbed her bag and walked out the door. Until today, it was the last either had seen of the other. She could still feel the same joy, the same sense of freedom and wonder she had felt the minute she sat down in the back of the rickshaw and watched her past slip by as she went her own way. + +Claire had run first to Mexico City where she found work assisting a professor at the University of Mexico. When Mexico joined UAS Claire caught a bus north to New Orleans where she lived until the first of the hurricanes came. Claire left on the first boat that would have her. It was on the boat that she met Sil, who had helped smuggle her into the Protectorate. Sil. She smiled, crushed out her cigarette. She could see herself smiling in the grayish reflection of the monitor. The room was silent. The sun was beginning to glow through the edges of the drapes. + +Claire took a deep breath and reached in her bag, pulling out her Plasmatic goggles and a small keyfob which had been handed to her by the driver that took her to the airport. She put on the goggles and logged in to the anonymous account that lived on the keyfob. She found Kali. It was hovering over a the virtual collider site, still online, but not controlled at the moment. Claire gestured to it, it came over and asked for a passkey. Claire said her name. Kali backed up and apologized, but said that it could not connect her. Claire tried again, this time using her first and last name. Kali lit up and asked what it could do for her. Claire brought up the code from the key and fed it to Kali. The daemon took off to do it's bidding, diving into the code structures of the collider, mining through algorithms and stored data from test runs and simulations, dumping it all into the data key. Claire watched as it inserted a backdoor and then wiped all traces of itself. Kali drifted away. + +When she was done Claire called the voice. + +I've got it. + +How much? + +As much as I can get. + +When will you be able to drop it off. + +I don't know. I may stay a while. I have things to take care of. + +I'll send someone to get it. + +Okay. I'll be at the hotel. You have the address. + +Yes. + +The line went dead. Claire threw the goggles across the room and finally allowed herself to cry. + +When she was done she packed up her things and left. + + + * * * + + +The porch was dark. The door too loud, squealing on its old hinges as it swung shut behind her and left only the stifling black silence of the house in front of her. She smashed her shin on the organ bench and knocked over an Easter card from her uncle before she remembered their was electricity. She fumbled for the switch and turned on the light. She stood in the living room, arms hanging limp at her sides. The off-white shag carpet gave way to the couch, carved wooden legs, threadbare cushions, some sort of nature scene in oil hanging above it, a duck or perhaps a loon, Claire wasn't sure, was taking off from a marsh, woodlands in background. The house was waiting for someone. Someone not her, someone not coming home again. She had as yet been unable to spend more than an hour in it and only then by convincing herself of little lies, that her grandmother was just running late from a doctor's appointment, stopped to pick up a prescription or perhaps a take out dinner, some of her favorite chili, the smell of which, to this day, made Claire nauseous. + +There had been no word from Waiben since she left his house a week ago. She assumed he had gone back to India. Claire had returned to her old haunts downtown, but the faces were different. College town, quipped the bartender at the Saguaro House, shrugging as if such things were to be expected. He had given Claire a free drink to lament the death of the Saguaro Cactus which had once grown in the middle of the room, stretching up toward the skylight. It had succumbed to the great something, turned first an unhealthy yellow and then the skeletal gray before it died. It happened not long after Claire left, some form of root rot the bartender said. A cross nearly the same height commemorated its passing. + +But the house would not die. Did not live. Sat silent, a witness, harboring opinions, but never forming conclusions, preferring to wait. She let her bag fall to the floor beside the easy chair that hadn't sat anyone in the fifteen years since her grandfather died. She walked down the hall, staring straight ahead, not wanting to look at the pictures, her parents at a shrine in Kyoto, Claire in striped, knee-high socks standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, her grandfather outside a tent in Panama, wearing fatigues and looking like a soldier. She went into the den where she had left her bags and took off her dress. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt before retracing her careful walk back down the hallway to the kitchen where she poured scotch in the same glass she's used the last three days. Then she retreated back out to the porch and lit a cigarette. Across the street was a row of identical and otherwise unremarkable brick ranch-style houses. Those that could had long since abandoned this neighborhood. Sometime after Claire left it had shifted from middle class to lower class, finally ending up stuck somewhere between the street preachers on Prince and the free needle dispensing clinic just two blocks west. But not her grandmother. She stayed to the end. + +The cigarette burned out between her fingers and Claire still wasn't sure what to do. She hadn't known what to do ever since she left the hotel. She had made a brief stab at cleaning out the house, even called relator to see about selling it, but ended up dissolving in tears before the assistant even put her through to the actual relator. The only thing she had managed to do was drink a lot and sleep off the effects during the days. + +As darkness became total the street seemed to perk up, she heard murmuring voices several doors down, dogs barked as children stepped out take up their nocturnal roles of hoodlums, petty thieves, B & E specialists. She watched as a woman stacked cord wood in an old oil drum and lit, placing a grate over the top. In Waiben's neighborhood there was plenty of electricity to be had, here only her grandmother could afford it. In the distance a bullhorn extorted the world to wake up, discover the one true god and repent from the ways of sin. Fix your eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. Claire considered this for a moment, deciding it was the most intelligent thing she had heard since leaving Waiben's house. Eventually she went back inside, grabbed her bag and set out for somewhere brighter, walking quickly to the end of the block where the subdivision gave way to the larger streets that led downtown, past Munson's Garage, the ruins of the Desert Rose mobile home park. A few blocks later, around the corner and past a few University buildings, she reached Tucson Boulevard, the heart of downtown where the smell of rotting pizza dough and steak tacos mingled with stale alcohol and the pot smoke wafting out from the behind a dumpster in an alley. People walked the sidewalks, talking, holding hands. It was so unlike the New York Claire knew, where people huddling in the darkness and moved along the streets like shadows. + +Just outside the Saguaro House she finally saw a familiar face -- Gordon, a schizophrenic man with the pure white piano in the back of his pure white truck with its pure white canopy protecting it, alternated between playing a few bars and yelling at the small crowd that had gathered to listen. The fact that the only person she recognized happened to be bat shit insane was troubling. She flicked her cigarette in the gutter and went inside. + +Claire was well through her second whiskey before Kill Me and The Shrimp took the stage. No one in the bar stopped talking, no one ever had for any band. She had sat through three nights of bands already this week, bands with names so forgettable even the members seemed unsure at times. + +Claire sat at the back of the Saguaro House, perched on a bar stool beneath the club's only hint of electric light, a single 40 watt bulb that dangled like a solar umbilical cord from the water-stained ceiling. The light created a halo around her which most of the crowd avoided, preferring the standing tables in the middle of the room where small clusters of humanity leaned into the candlelight to see one another, but certainly there was no interest in what was happening on stage as Kill Me and The Shrimp began to play. + +Claire was not impressed, though she was somewhat surprised to hear what sounded like jazz. Or at least something that might have been trying to be jazz. Who the hell started a jazz band anymore? It might not be good, but, Claire decided, you had to give them points for creative recycling. And there was something strangely compelling about the name -- who was Kill Me? Who were The Shrimp? + +As it happened there was no Kill Me, just a bunch of The Shrimp. Most of the locals abandoned the Saguaro House halfway through the set, off to find some quieter spot more conversation conducive. Claire found herself at the bar talking to the band as they quaffed down their per diem of free beer. As far as Claire could tell, was their sole profit for the evening. Ethan was the drummer, the only one to formally introduce himself to Claire. He seemed eager to talk to her, attempting to piece together the apparently complex nature of Los Angeles bands, somehow wrapped around the idea that two can become one. There was, it seemed, a band called Kill Me Before I Die and another known as The Shrimp, named after a club misspelled The Shemp, a name taken from the lesser of the four stooges. But then through the joint miracles of sublimation and romantic emigration, the two became one, Kill Me and The Shrimp. + +How is Los Angeles? + +Messy. Ethan nursed the last swallow of a Guinness, swirling it around the bottom of his glass. + +Claire was going to ask what he thought of the Protectorate colonies, but she decided against it. Instead she just watched him watch the glass. She was afraid he might come to tears if the brown liquid were to disappear entirely. She offered to buy him another. He accepted. After a while Claire noticed she had half-turned on her bar stool to face him and Ethan had done the same, elbow on the bar, hand propping his head up, cocked toward her. It certainly seemed like there was an interest between them, it caught her slightly off guard. + +I grew up here, she heard herself saying. But I left years ago, things weren't really going my way... the other side of that romantic emigration thing. She smiled. But now I'm back because my grandmother died two weeks ago. + +Ethan mumbled an apology and downed the rest of his beer, moving on to the second glass. + +Without warning Ethan launched into a long diatribe about the Indian collider and how Kill Me and The Shrimp were planning to fly to India soon and play at the protest shows that were ramping up now that the collider was almost ready to come online. Claire said nothing, which was just as well, Ethan was full of opinions. It didn't take long for her to notice that he didn't actually understand what the collider was trying to do, he simply saw it as so many did -- marvelous, powerful and awe-inspiring. Whether that awe produced fear or excitement depended more on the person describing it than anything the collider itself might be capable of. Ethan for one seemed to think it was scary. Though he was at pains to point out that playing the protests would be a good move, music career wise, which he acknowledged was coloring his judgment. Claire kept her collider connections to herself and searched for a way to change the subject. Much to her horror she heard herself telling Ethan about her parents, pretty much a show stopper for getting someone to come home with you. She tried to lighten the story up, to make it less depressing, wishing in fact she hadn't mentioned them at all, but finding herself midway through the story before she could stop herself. + +Shortly thereafter Ethan politely excused himself and went off the load up his drums. + +Claire nursed the last of her whiskey and tried to decide if Ethan was really cute or if she had simply been in Tucson too long. She couldn't decide and in the end thought perhaps it didn't matter anyway. She downed the last of her drink, paid the bill and walked outside. Ethan and his band mates were leaning against their electrovan, talking to Gordon the crazy piano player who was in the process of inviting them to a desert bonfire party in the national monument just outside of town. Claire slid up next to Ethan and whispered in his ear, Gordon is batty, just so you know. Like clinical batty. Don't touch the piano, he'll flip out, germs you know... of course when he's on his meds he's a bit better, but I'm just saying... + +Good to know... but do you think the party is real? + +Oh absolutely. Or at least they used to happen all the time. Peyote parties, bribe the rangers, bring a hundred people, pass the cactus and everybody gets naked. That was before the contraction though, not sure what they're like now. + +Sweet, that's what we need to do, recruit new listeners. + +Right. He look down at his shoes. We just did the border crossing two days ago. + +Bad? + +Expensive. Slow. Lots of scanning. + +Claire nodded. Well, she pushed off the van with her elbows. Watch out for the vomit... and the cacti. + +Claire was already walking down the street, hands thrust in her pockets when Ethan yelled, hey, wait, you want to come? + +She spun around and her hair fell in her face. He wasn't ugly anyway. She considered it for a moment. Okay, sure, she smiled. + +There were already a dozen cars and trucks parked at group campsite five in the Tucson Mountains National Monument. A trail at the far end of the group camp loop led down an arroyo where, if you looked for the right clump of trees, or maybe it was a tower of stones, you could follow the remnants of a deer trail up to a large rock outcropping where indian paintings covered the mottled maroon and black rocks. + +The ocotillo spines looked like claws scratching at the cloudless sky as Claire, with The Shrimp in tow, walked toward the bonfire. In the distance the strobe effect of heat lightning blinked against the night sky. Claire kept to the edge of the fire light, seeking out the small line that led to a cooler of beer stashed under a picnic table. There were at least forty people Claire guessed, most sitting on tables, a few camp chairs dragged out for the occasion. Two lonely looking kids picked idly at guitars, and surreptitiously glanced around every so often to see if the group of girls sitting near them were paying any attention. But from what Claire could see they weren't, one girl was roasting marshmallows and then passing them to her companions who played with the soft molten sugar, enthralled by the power of hallucinogens and food science brought together. Claire didn't recognize anyone other than Gordon. It wasn't much past midnight and people were still streaming in out of the night, bobbing halos of flashlight moving through the dark desert, the occasional yelp of accidental cactus contact and general stumbling drunkenness. A girl in an emerald sequined dress, which sparkled like something out of Dante in the fire light, burned her hand on the dry ice. Someone was applying a salve and bandages. Claire gingerly slipped her hand into the cooler and grabbed the first two cylindrical objects she found, flipping one to Ethan, popping open the other for herself. They surveyed the indistinct shapes moving around the fire and watched as the other members of Kill Me and The Shrimp drifted over toward the light, introducing themselves to another cluster of girls who were already holding beer cans and looking aloof. + +Claire and Ethan instinctively moved back, away from the fire, lighting cigarettes, talking as harmlessly as they could. Eventually they found a place to sit in the soft arroyo sand, leaning back against a clump of rocks which they squirmed and wiggled against until the notches in their spines fit against the granite. They had stopped talking, there was only the quiet sucking sound of air hissing through their cigarettes, the faint crisp of burning tobacco... Claire stared at a Saguaro next to them, its silvery thorns like spiked asterisks punctuating the green ridges of smooth cactus flesh and reaching out to cover the valleys between them. Claire began to feel a waiting creep in, a tension that Ethan either didn't sense or didn't know what to do about. She nearly groaned when Ethan began to tell her something about the band, at which point she turned around, grabbed his head in her hands and pressed his lips to her own to silence him. She could taste the acrid earthiness of smoke in his mouth. The scruff on his face brushed against her skin and she thought for an instant about the Indian yogis that Waiben swore would lie on a bed of nails without feeling pain. She let him go and curled back a bit. He was smiling at her with a sort of goofy, puppy face that Claire instinctively wanted to slap, but she managed to restrain herself. Instead she just looked at him while she filled her hand with sand and let it run through her fingers. + +Then a smile broke over her face. Are you ready for the naked part? + +Definitely. + +Well... first there's customarily a chase... + +A what? + +Claire jumped up and and scampered down the arroyo, kicking sand at him as she went. + +Ethan spit and swore. She ducked behind a creosote bush and yelled at him to come find her. He stood up and walked down the arroyo looking for her. She backed up the embankment a bit and when he came into view she launched herself out wrapping her arms around him as she landed, straddled his waist with her legs. She lifted his chin up with her finger and they began to kiss. Before long his hands slipped under her shirt and she dropped her legs down to stand. His hand moved down inside her jeans while Claire fumbled with the zipper. Eventually she worked her jeans down to her ankles and pulled off her shirt. She grabbed Ethan by the shoulders and pushed him down until he was kneeling before her. Should have shaved my legs today she thought in passing, but then his breath was on her thighs. She squirmed and grabbed him by the hair, pulling hard enough that his face jerked to the side and she could see the whites of his eyes looking up at her with fear and surprise. She dropped to her knees facing him, kissing him, yanking his head to the side, her grip still tight on his hair. Her fingers fumbled at the buttons of his shirt, unable to work it out, she simply ripped it apart, biting his lip in the process. She broke away from his kiss, a faint saltiness in her mouth. She shifted awkwardly, pulling her legs out from under her, feeling the cool sand slide between her toes as she rolled backward. And then she kicked out her legs, up over his head using the crumpled jeans around her ankles to grab him by the back of the neck and force him down between her legs. She came twice before she let him up, careful to give him a few gasps of air every now and then but otherwise trying her best to smother him. Eventually she had had enough and pushed him over onto his back, she kicked her jeans off one leg and climbed on top of him, licking at the saliva on his chin. He slid inside her and she began to rock back and forth, but a scuffling in the bushes stopped her, the two guitar playing boys from the fire were crouched down, staring wide-eyed at Claire's breasts. She scowled at them, expecting them to run, but they didn't. Instead one extended a baggie, flipping it toward Claire. It landed in the sand next to her and she glanced down. Even in the moonlight she could clearly see the shriveled gray Peyote buttons. She shrugged and bent down to kiss Ethan again, her fingers digging in the sand until they curled around the plastic bag. She pried the seal apart with one hand and extracted two Peyote buttons, which she then popped in her mouth. + +He came inside her and she rolled off him on her back, the cold sand pressing against her bare back. They lay side by side, staring up the stars. She smiled and reached over for the bag, pulling out two more buttons. You want to try some Peyote? She ran a finger across Ethan 's lip and stuck it gently into in his mouth, pulling his jaw open. Her other hand brought up the Peyote which she slid onto his tongue. His face screwed up surprise and he spit the Peyote out into his palm. He looked down at them, grey and slick with spit. He looked back at her. + +You're serious? Where did you get these? + +She shrugged, does it matter? + +This is Peyote? He lay back down and help it up against the moonlight. + +Yup. + +You vomit? + +You do. + +Did you eat some already? + +Two. + +What's it like? + +Claire laughed and shrugged. I don't know, I've never done it. + +Huh. Ethan popped the buttons back in his mouth. They were crunchy and dry despite his spit. He nearly gagged as they made their way down his throat. + +How long does it take? + +Claire ignored him and rolled over, reaching for her jacket. She shook out sand and pulled out a cigarette. She stood up naked in the moonlight and watched as come dripped out of her, running down her leg. Ethan stared at her white skin even whiter in the pale light. She let him stare, his eyes and then his hands tracing the curve of her calf, the bend behind her knee, up to the soft skin of her inner thighs. She reached down and cupped a hand between her legs before he could get there. He looked up at her face and Claire scooped up a gooey mass of come and flicked it at him. Don't get all serious on me. And I have no idea how long Peyote takes Ethan. Something new. I think maybe you ask a few too many questions... + +He shrugged. People do say that from time to time... + +I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that. She lay back down beside him staring up at the stars. They lay like that for a while, dozing at times into some light form of sleep. Claire could have sworn she was dreaming, but a dream that was no different than where she actually was... + +She heard Ethan 's voice say, Should we maybe, I dunno, head back to the fire? And the thought of it snapped her to. Lord no. Claire propped herself up on her elbow and lit another cigarette. The last thing I want if I'm going down some rabbit hole is to be around other people. Let's just stay here... + +You want to go again... + +She smiled. What if I throw up on you, isn't that a bit forward for a first date? + +... + +Plus I think I got sand in me... + +That's not be good. + +No it's not. + +They smoked in silence, waiting. + +Nothing seems to be happening... + +I think it takes more than ten minutes Ethan . + +Maybe we should eat some more... + +Claire grabbed the bag and held it up to the lighter. There were about two dozen buttons in it. He snatched it out of her hand and began digging through it. I say we eat these, Ethan held out about half the bag. + +Why not? Claire grabbed her half and popped one in her mouth, chewing it slowly. It tasted like powdered sour milk. + +It looks like ginger that you left in the fridge too long... + +You cook? + +I used to. + +Claire lay down on her back in the soft arroyo sand. Ethan finished the cigarette and lay down beside her. After a while she heard him say, I feel... Different. + +Me too. I feel happy. + +She closed her eyes and let her whole body relax as she breathed out. She saw a vast field of green plants, little white flowers, as far as she could see, like a tulip garden in Holland, but much smaller flowers, or she was much bigger, a giant. She tried to say something to Ethan, but could not speak. Her mouth moved, but the words were garbled and only gurgling sounds came out. She gave up. She stood, half-stumbling at the awkwardness of her body, lurching forward involuntarily, she felt a thick warmth in her mouth. She spit but nothing seemed to come out. She coughed and felt bile in her throat. She vomited but it was not vomit, a flower, a plant, the root and soil sliding thickly across her tongue. And then another. Tiny white flowers fell. She looked down and saw the plants protruding up around her, carrots, but they were growing upside down, pointy orange tips reaching for the sky. Claire felt the pinch as they slipped into her soles, puncturing the skin, growing up inside her, up her legs, thin green stalks in her veins and suddenly she was was on the ground again, pulled down by the roots running though her, the plant covering over her, breaking out through the pores in her skin, in her mouth, choking her, she gasped but could not breath. She stopped trying, and then the warm soil came over her, the musty scent of earth. Her lungs burned but the feeling was far away, and then there was darkness. + +She was floating in a pure black, vacuous emptiness, nothing below, nothing above, no up, no down. She held up her hand to her face, but she could not see it, only darkness suffocating her. She began to be afraid, but then she saw them, at the far edges of her vision, impossibly distance, a cluster of lights like nearly burnt out suns, the cool white light of neutron stars, not yet consumed in the darkness. They drew closer, though she could not tell if it was she to them, or them to her. They became more distinct, individual lights, not so much neutron stars as fireflies, darting and hovering in the night. After a while she noticed patterns in their movement. It looked as if each light were moving in a series of tubes, an endless cubical grid of invisible tubes connected by hubs like the toothpick and chickpea sculptures she had built as a child. Beads of yellow and white light moved through the grid. As she rushed toward them they broke apart into smaller lights, colored now, blues and reds and greens speeding along until she realized that she too was one of the lights, she could feel herself throb and pulse, something within her radiating out. Everything spun by in a dizzy pinwheel of color as she moved through the grid, disappearing into a hub and then feeling herself expelled back out of it again. Each time she moved out of a hub into a blackness there was an unbearable sense of loss, of total emotional emptiness that terrified her. Each time she felt as if there was no escape, that this was the emptiness that she would always exist in, would always feel. Sometimes she mutated through colors as she went, from the green throb of illness, a bout of Strep as child, her throat swollen with lumps and then through another hub and out she came pulsing blue as the ocean, her body slipping into a pool, the concrete cool and wet. Then came yellow, birds on the patio at the her grandmother's house, fighting over mottled sunflower seeds in the feeder, in and out another hub, this time red, the rage at the man at the door, her grandmother crying... and the pace began to accelerate, she felt her heart rate speed up and she became afraid, gasping and panting, the blood pounding through her so intensely she could feel her heartbeat in her belly, in her elbows, her knees and then came panic and terror, but then something was tearing at the blackness, ripping through it, scratches of white light seeping in from a above, blinding her. She looked up and saw a young doe chewing the grass that surrounded her. Claire lifted her head, the dirt and grass cascading off of her. Her arms were heavy, hard to lift out of the soil. The deer regarded her, neither curious nor surprised, it continued to chew, watching her. + +She pulled herself out of the ground and stood. The deer swallowed and then motioned with its head. Claire followed as it leaped up and bounded across the field and into a dark wood where she could see nothing. They walked on until gradually the trees thinned, the undergrowth tapered and they emerged onto a city street. She walked quickly, trying to keep up with the doe as it bounded ahead, then turned to wait, watching her struggle to keep up. That went on until she began to recognize where she was -- New Orleans, her old street, up to the landing of old her house, her old bedroom, the sheets were the way she had left them, crumpled and dirty, a rusty-brown spot on one side where she had passed out drunk without a tampon in. She felt herself blush but the deer seemed not to notice. He walked across the bedroom, stepping over Claire's crumpled dresses, around the overflowing laundry basket. The deer moved gingerly, its tiny hoofs navigating around a jewelry box that had fallen off the dresser, its back legs bending awkwardly to slip over the hope chest at the end of bed until it finally made it to the peeling French doors that led out to the balcony where it stopped and stared out at downtown. Claire walked around the bed, flipping the blanket as she went to cover the stain and followed the deer's gaze until she saw it: New Orleans was on fire. Smoke billowed from the windows of the high rises, tiny figures clinging to a helicopter that struggled to lift off under the weight, rocking side to side out of control until some fingers slipped and figures plunged down toward the street below. The strange block top of the Crescent City Residences erupted as if a bomb had gone off, spewing concrete and glass from its flaming mouth. The sound hit Claire in the plexus, a high pitch scream that came well after she saw the impact. Her turned her head toward the sea where she could see warships firing huge guns that lay like spikes on their decks. There was another burst of flame as shells rocketed into the wharf area hitting a series of warehouses that began to erupt in flames. The rockets came in faster now, hitting buildings all around her, flames leapt up, the shock waves rolled through the city, shattering glass and drowning out the screams, but Claire could see people running. An old women stumbling out a doorway, half on fire, the flames leaping in her hair... a boy wandering lost, tears in his eyes, mouth open in a mute scream... She turned back to look inland at the expressway heading out of town where there was already a line of people pushing wheelbarrows full of belongings, moving as fast as they could, keeping low against the median. Families pulling toy wagons overflowing with suitcases and clothes, dogs in baskets. She closed her eyes and looked away but the deer nudged her and gestured back, out the window. She looked again and it was night, the city burned, the roar of the fires was like nothing she had ever heard, a giant sucking sound that seemed to consume all other noise, pulling everything in on itself like a collapsing star. + +The deer turned and walked out of the room, down the hall, down the stairs and into the street where he stood, Claire at his side, watching the river of humanity rise up out of New Orleans and head inland like a tide swelling, their heads hung low. They walked in silence, parting around Claire like a river encountering a rock, not noticing or not caring that she was there. The deer began to walk through them, moving upstream against a great river of human detritus, Claire in tow, stumbling over the broken asphalt, chunks of concrete uprooted from the sidewalks, crumbled bricks and shattered glass from the still smoking rubble of the houses lining Lafayette where Claire and deer walked slowly, silently among the crowd. And then the doe turned down a side street, out of the flow of humanity and wandered into a door that led up a flight of stairs, around a widow's walk and into a set of doors which revealed not another room in New Orleans, but the little brick house that would not die. She stood back in her grandmother's living room, the carefully lathed wood railing that sectioned off the kitchen, the TV still there, the artifact of an earlier age, punctuating the room like an exclamation point, front and center and silent. The deer moved forward to the mantel above the television where the box of ashes sat atop the book, just as Claire had left them. The deer knocked the ashes off the book and stepped back, its coarse fur pressed against her leg. Claire stepped around it, gathered up the ashes and took the book in her hands. The deer stepped lightly over the matted white carpet and into the kitchen, Claire followed, moving around the corner until she saw her grandmother sitting there, sipping tea at the table, smoothing a yellow napkin slowly between her fingers. The deer walked through and stood behind her. Claire sat down at the table across from her grandmother and watched as her grandmother's mouth twisted and gapped, unable to form words, but producing a bubbling spittle that dribbled down her chin and sprayed onto the table in front of her. She nodded slowly, attempting a smile and brought the napkin to her lips, dabbling up the spittle from her chin. Claire began to sob, her grandmother's hand reached out, pressed on hers, cold and bony. She began to speak again, but only produced more bubbling, as if the sounds were only half fermented and oozing out, the white bubbles popped like sea foam sliding across her chin, a great wave gurgling unseen, deep down in her throat. Her mouth gapped and gasped like fish flopping on the shore until finally her throat began to murmur soft sounds and little beads of light began to emerge, small beautiful lights that flew up out of the bubbling spittle. They hung in the air like tiny lanterns suspended on invisible strings, dancing slowly in the still air of the kitchen. Her grandmother paused to catch her breath and turned her head to watch the beads of light hovering in the air. Suddenly Claire noticed her grandmother's jaw was broken and hung down, listing to the side where saliva dribbled out onto the floor, pooling in puddles of red and white... Claire half rose and put her hand to her grandmother's face but recoiled at the cold of dead skin. Her grandmother's hand moved up and touched Claire's own face, the cold bony fingers began to work at her jaw, moving it until Claire found herself saying, I love you ... and then suddenly the lights began to dim, fell out of the air, hitting the table and bursting into sounds that hit Claire's eardrums like the blast of the train whistle, screeching and unintelligible, until they started to faded away, dropping in pitch as the went. Claire could finally make out the sound, it rushed in at her, like a speeding train running her down at the crossing, fast approaching a sinister growl that began to howl. Claire jumped back in terror, knocking over the chair and falling back against the wall, the words were coming toward her, they were on her, crawling over her skin like curious scorpions, stinging painful barbs began to pierce her, she opened her mouth to scream and they rushed in diving down her throat and she could feel them squirming in her stomach as she squirmed on the ground, clawing at the yellow linoleum of the kitchen floor, trying to pull herself toward the glass door, gasping and crying, unable to scream. The door was open and she pulled herself out, following the deer's hooves which moved across the brick patio and out into the grass and sand where Claire clawed at the earth. And then the pain in her stomach passed as suddenly as it came and she pulled herself up and stood shaking. Looking around her again she saw that they were in the middle of a dusty street, old buildings with wood walkways lined either site, the wood rotted and gray, too long in the desert sun. The wind blew, a chair on a porch rocked back and forth, tick-tocking over the wood planks like a grandfather clock. Gusts began to pick up, gather into something steady and howling. The wind smelled of the sea, twinged with salt and moisture... The air seemed to gather up around them, little electric sparks, the palpable tension that precedes the thunderclouds. But there were no clouds, no thick black and ominous warning on the horizon, only a thin gray line, like a band of smoke running horizontally across the western sky. The deer stopped and cocked its head looking up at the shape in the sky, which was clearly growing closer, clearly moving toward them. Though it resolved itself moments before it arrived, it took Claire some time to realize that the smoke was in fact birds, an enormous flock of birds... gulls and cormorants, geese, robins and crows, pinyon jays, thrushes and desert warblers, all of them moving in a singular mass that came roaring overhead, a thousand tiny beaks, screeching and screeching, protesting at the unbelievable blast of wind that accompanied their arrival, blowing them from somewhere else, forced to ride along helpless for a while, until they were deposited somewhere else by a twist of fate. Claire looked around but there was no one, the deer was gone. The birds moved through in a hurricane of beaks and talons, her skin was cut, feathers beat against her ears and then, as quickly as they, came they left, pulled on by the invisible storm. Claire was alone. + + + * * * * + + +The light behind her eyelids was red. Claire opened her eyes slowly, squinting at the glare leaking in through the shutters. She felt a thread from the quilt tickle her lip, her eyes adjusted to the light and she moved her head to have a look around. Quite clearly her grandmother's house, but worse, quite clearly her grandmother's bedroom, quite clearly her grandmother's bed, the sheets Claire still hadn't washed... She sat up in alarm, extending her arm directly into Ethan's bare back. They both started. She wondered if her eyes were as saucer big and scared as his. + +Jesus. I didn't know... Sorry I ... How did we get here? + +Ethan sat up next to her. Are you serious? You don't remember Gordon giving us a ride? After you told him you would spit in his face and give him tuberculous if he didn't? + +I did that? + +You did. + +And we came here? And you stayed with me? + +Well, I can't say that was the highlight of the evening, but there were other moments such that I overlooked it. At least for now. + +I'm touched. She rolled out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom. But then she froze and spun around, popping her head out the bathroom door. We didn't have sex here did we? + +No. I tried, but you were pretty gone. + +Thank god Claire mumbled, ducking back in the bathroom and turning on the shower. She let it get steaming hot despite the fact that it was undoubtedly already scorching outside. She stepped in and let the water hit her full in the chest, little beads running down her stomach, she relaxed until she closed her eyes and saw her grandmother again, sitting in the kitchen. She could still hear it, feel the words crawling on her skin. She opened her eyes and tried to will the vision away, but everything she thought about seemed to keep coming back around to the white foam in her grandmother's mouth. She gave up and turned off the shower. + +When she stepped out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around her body, Ethan was sitting up in bed smoking a cigarette and leafing through a copy of the Bhagavad Gita that Claire had been reading. + +Breakfast? She walked around the bed. + +Shower? + +Sure, I'll wait. Claire walked down the hall to the kitchen where she dug through the cupboards looking for the coffee. Eventually she found an old tin of Folgers, but left it where it was. She closed the cupboard and turned to face the table. She saw her grandmother, her mouth moving, gaping. Claire nearly screamed. But when she looked again it was gone. + +Her heart was racing. She half ran out of the kitchen, into the den where she found her clothes from the night before. She dug through her jacket for a smoke and pulled on an old t-shirt and skirt from her backpack. She took a deep breath and walked back out in to the kitchen, closing her eyes as she stumbled awkwardly around the table and fumbled for the sliding glass door. Outside the light was like a scalpel carving the world with singular, glaring precision. Claire felt like she was stepping out of a movie theatre at midday. She smoked her cigarette and tried to think of the good things she had seen last night, but quickly concluded that there really hadn't been any. And she had threatened Gordon? She had always known there was a reason she stayed sober most of the time, she had just never known exactly what it was. She flicked the cigarette in the dead grass and went back inside. + +Eventually Ethan came out, freshly showered and looking, if not Claire's type exactly, at least attractive enough. They walked downtown until they found a diner that was still serving breakfast at the crack of noon. Along the way Ethan plied Claire with questions about the Indian collider. She quickly realized that at some point last night she had been alarmingly forthcoming with her knowledge of the collider, though, as far as she could tell from Ethan's questions, she had never mentioned Waiben. At first she answered his questions with the sort of vague physics platitudes that she had heard Waiben drop to those whom he knew didn't really want to know the answer. But then around the time they settled into a booth at the tackily named Old Time Kafe, she realized that he genuinely wanted to know, so she started in on design as best she understood it, still able see the diagrams and chicken scratch scrawl of Waiben's notes. At one point Ethan stopped her. Is this really something that I'm going to understand? He was forking his way through a Texas omelette, a browned pile of eggs saturated in Pinto beans, salsa and a now liquified pool of sour cream. + +You should, it's along the same lines as music, just with different scales and resonances... + +Where's the backbeat? + +That's question isn't it? It's a mystery. + +I like it already. Except for the part where our existence is happening in the middle of some vibrating string. Guitar players always get all the glory. + +What about Phil Collins? Claire thought for a moment that Ethan was going to leap over the table and strangle her, but the rage seemed to pass as quickly as it came and he let it slide. + +So the strings vibrate... + +That's one way of looking at it. Another is that we, and everything else in this world, are shadows cast by objects in another dimension. + +So which is it? + +Both most likely. I always liked it better to think of it as the objects that cast the shadows we see, like the old Plato cliche about the shadows in the cave... Or think of it this way, since you're from L.A., imagine you're at a Hollywood party, the crowd is rather thick, and evenly distributed around the room, chatting. When the big star arrives, the people nearest the door gather around her. As she moves through the party, she attracts the people closest to her, and those she moves away from return to their other conversations. By gathering a fawning cluster of people around her, she's gained momentum, an indication of mass. She's harder to slow down than she would be without the crowd. Once she's stopped, it's harder to get her going again. That's mass, the crowd is the Higgs particle and it's in the process of interacting with the crowd that the starlet, or the type of particle we're used to seeing, behaves as if she has mass because of it. So the question becomes, essentially, does the intangible give rise to the tangible? Or is it the other way around? If Wai-they are right then the intangible gives rise to the tangible. And the intangible is extra-dimensional. Remember the Higgs Boson particle they found in Switzerland? + +Ethan smiled. No. + +Well, the theory was that an invisible particle, so small we couldn't detect it, almost a bit like the Aether of old, was what actually makes the larger particles we can see, electrons and so on, behave the way they do. They even had a name for it, the Higgs Boson particle and it, if it existed, would be the thing that bestows mass, it was to be, for lack of a better word the, god particle, because it creates everything else. So they found it, but it didn't behave quite the way they thought it would, so now they think the Higgs particle might in fact be not a particle but a whole other dimension or a dark world or... there are some other metaphors, but you get the idea... + +Ethan nodded and seemed satisfied with this explanation, though Claire knew was only about half-true at best, but Claire had lost interest. She couldn't shake a worried feeling that had been dogging her ever since she had become a bead of light traveling through invisible tubes. Jesus, she thought, maybe I'm still high. She reached into her purse to check the time on her com and noticed that both the box of ashes and the book from her hallucination were inside. She was just about to freak out about the discovery when her thoughts were interrupted by a massive concussive blast that rocked the building and rattled the windows. Alarms began to go off all up and down the street. Everyone outside had stopped and was scanning the sky. The sound was like the boom of a jet, but somehow different, more rolling, like an earthquake arriving from somewhere far away, except that the ground did not roll. + +Ethan looked at her. Claire shrugged. The restaurant was silent, even the cooks had stopped fussing at the flattop and were looking out the window as if waiting for another, but nothing happened. The other patrons began to whisper amongst themselves, sonic boom maybe... earthquake? + +Ethan shrugged and went back to his omelette, eating in silence. + +Claire pulled out her com. That's odd, my com is dead. + +Ethan pulled his out to check. So is mine. Protectorate networks are shit. + +Maybe. Claire got up and went to the counter and put on the open Plasmatic goggles. I2 was still working, but before she would log in she heard fighter jets coming in low over the city, well off the allowed flight path and much faster than Claire was used to, flying in pairs. The windows rattled again as the jets passed overhead, two then two more, then two more. They kept coming, a squadron's worth at least Claire thought as the goggles confirmed her retinal scans and granted her access to her I2 properties. There did not seem to be anything unusual happening in I2 at first glance, but as Claire began to walk around the room things started to disappear. First the Picasso over the sofa blinked out, replaced by the grey and white checkers of I2 canvas. Then the couch vanished, then the window and the view beyond. As Claire spun around things continue to disappear, someone was deleting her. She saw a glimmering in the corner of the room just before the walls blinked out, a shadowy wisp of a daemon and then she ripped the goggles off. + +She walked back to the table trying her best to look casual and unconcerned. We should go, she whispered. + +What? Wait a minute I want more coffee. Now, Claire hissed, tossing money to the man behind the cash register and not bothering with change. She grabbed Ethan by the jacket collar and pulled him up out of the booth. + +What the fuck Claire? They stood outside the restaurant as another pair of fighters roared overhead. + +I need to get out of here. + +Okay... + +Are you coming? + +Coming where? + +Well, back to the house for starters. + +Okay. + +When they got back to the house Claire threw her clothes in her backpack, grabbed two photos off the organ and gently placed the box of ashes and the book on top. She picked up the book again, wondering if it was worth the weight. It was nearly falling apart. Claire had found it when she attempted to clean out the house several days ago. The book had a silver lock on it, Claire had been looking for a key when she found a box of pictures and memories and tears had ended that project. She picked up the book and ran her fingers over the lock. It seemed like a journal. She dropped it back in her backpack. She was about to tighten down the top straps when she heard Ethan clearing his throat. She turned around and Ethan was behind her, pointing a rather large gun at her. + +What the fuck? + +Claire, okay, just, don't freak out. I just. Look I was hired to find you and get something from you. And I searched all through this house last night when you were passed out and I couldn't find it. And I watched you pack and I still didn't see it. + +You did find my grandfather's gun I see. + +Look. I don't want to be pointing this at you. I like you. But the man who hired me. + +Is going to kill you if you don't find what he sent you to get? + +Yes. + +I know. He's going to kill me too. I guess he's already trying. He's kind of a dick. + +Ethan smiled a bit. Yes, he is. But he pays well. + +True. He does. Claire was reasonably sure he wasn't going to actually shoot her. She tried to relax. They stood staring at each other in the still heat of the room, both unsure what to say. Finally Claire broke the silence. Are you really a drummer? + +This time Ethan couldn't stop himself, he smiled and looked like he might laugh, but he caught himself. I am. But I freelance. The Shrimp aren't exactly raking in the dough. + +What do you want to do? + +I want you to give me the datakey. + +I don't have it. + +He frowned. + +I mean I have it, but it's not here. + +Well then let's go get it. Where is it? + +I'll take you, but we need a car. + +Ethan sighed. He pulled out his com and held it up for Claire to see. Still dead. + +Use the old dialphone in the kitchen. + +You first. + +Claire walked past him, keeping her hands not exactly up, but where he could see them. + +She pulled the ancient touch tone phone off the hook and tossed it to Ethan. He dialed a number. Claire fidgeted with the knobs on the stove and stared into the darkness of the pantry, wondering if she could close and lock the door fast enough to keep Ethan out. And then what? She edged toward the darkness of the pantry anyway. She heard Ethan ask someone to go ahead and swing by. Then she heard confusion in his voice. What? Fuck me. Okay. + +What? + +Claire, what did you do? + +What? + +Apparently there's a Protectorate bulliten out for you. What did you do? What the hell do they want with you? + +Nothing. Well, I mean, other than accessing an AIdaemon to get that precious data your boss wants, nothing. + +Fuck. You used AI? Why would you do that? + +Claire shrugged. Self-destruction runs in my family. She suddenly felt the same sense of unbelievable joy she had felt in the rickshaw leaving Waiben. She felt almost whimsical. + +Fuck. Well, do you have a plan for getting out of here? + +Yes. + +Well, now would be good time to put it in action I think. + +Oh, well, I don't have a plan for getting out of here exactly, I have a plan for getting out of jail. + +What? + +I know someone that can get me out of jail. She smiled brightly. + +Who Waiben? + +She laughed so suddenly spit flew out her mouth. No. Not Waiben. + +I would think no going to jail would be a better plan. + +Yes. Yes it would. + +He was waving the gun around as he spoke and it began to make Claire nervous. She edged closer to the stove and began to involuntarily fiddle with the knobs. + +Don't get any ideas. + +What? + +The stove. You're thinking you could turn on the gas and blow me up or something. + +You really are stupid Ethan. Do have any idea how long it would take to file this room with enough gas to. Never mind. Besides, wouldn't that blow me up too? + +He looked down and said nothing. + +Throw me a cigarette. + +Ethan turn and grabbed the pack off the kitchen table and tossed it to her. + +She pulled one out. Got a lighter? + +He felt his pockets. No. Use the stove. + +Aren't you worried it's been running all this time and when I turn it on it'll blow up? + +You said... + +She turned the knob. Nothing happened. The sound of hissing propane filled the room. There's no automatic lighter, it broke when I was still a little girl when it was converted to propane. There's lighter in that bowl over there, she gestured to kitchen counter, where a fruit bowl full of papers, pens and scraps of junk sat, below the dialphone on the wall. + +Okay. Slowly though. Claire edged around the counter, sliding past Ethan who kept the gun trained on her. She pulled the lighter out the bowl and lit her cigarette. + +So now what? + +I need that datakey. + +I know. But it isn't here. + +We need to go get it. + +Okay. Let's go. It's only a twenty mile walk to the foothils from here. + +Ethan sighed and pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. Claire stood by the sliding glass door, thing about the fact that Ethan was sitting xactly where her grandmother had been sitting in her vision. + +What? + +Nothing. It's just. What did you see last night when you ate the Peyote? + +Ethan smiled. Nothing. I spit it out when you started throwing up. + +Too bad. It was informative. + +How so? + +In a minute I'm going to break your jaw. + +What? + +In a minute I'm going to break your jaw. + +How are you going to do that? + +I'm not sure. I don't even want to do it. I'm going to feel bad about it for a long time, but I know it's going to happen. + +Why? + +Because I saw it. + +Really? In your vision? + +More or less. + +Huh. Ethan looked around the room. I don't see anything that looks jaw breaking. He turned toward the hallway and as he brought his head back around Claire pushed her foot off the wall and dove over the table crashing square into Ethan's chest. The chair toppled backward and the gun clattered across the linoleum floor skidding into the hallway. Claire scrambled up ignoring the searing pain in her arm and picked up the gun. Ethan lay on his back, still sitting in the chair, looking dazed. He was gasping for breath. + +Claire stood over him, gun pointed down. + +Well, I guess Peyote isn't a time machine. + +You. Knocked the. Wind out. Of me. + +Sorry. Now get up. + +He rolled over and stood up. + +Turn around and face the wall. He turned and stood against the railing that divided the kitchen from the living room. Claire walked around into the living room. Stick your hands through the railing. Stay. + +She walked back around, circling the table to stay way from him. She rummaged in the junk drawer and pulled out a roll of duct tape. She came back around and proceeded to duct tape his hand together. + +How am I going to get out of here? + +Claire set the gun on top of the organ and went over to her bag. She tightened down the straps and threw the backpack over her shoulder. + +I'm not really sure Ethan and, as you might suspect, I don't really give a shit. If I were you I'd start with your teeth. She came around the wall and stood behind him. Now you need to kick off your shoes. + +What? + +You shoes. I don't know how long it's going to take you to get out of there and I don't want you running after me. He kicked off his shoews. She leaned up against his back and put her arms around him. One me thing my dear. She unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants. + +What the fuck Claire? + +She yanked down his pants and his underwear. Take them off. + +Jesus. He kicks off his panks with Claire's help. + +Well, it sure was interesting meeting you Ethan. She was out the back door before he could reply. She tossed the shoes and his pants on the roof and walked toward the back fence. She opened the gate, peering down the alley way. There was no one around, in fact it was eerily quiet. She put the safety on the gun, tucked it into her waistband and ran down the alley. + +She kept running through the network of alleys until they ran out and she found herself nearing Tucson Boulevard. Suddenly there were people, people all over the street huddled around old cars. Claire walked toward the nearest crowd. The broadcaster said, again we don't know much at this point, only that something has happened in the western UAS. What is it? Claire asked the man still sitting in the car. + +Don't know, something happened, all the networks are down. So far they aren't saying anything other than what you just heard. Something to do with that sonic boom I imagine. + +Claire left the people and started walking south. Five blocks later she found an empty street and walked down it trying car doors as she went. Two streets later she found what she was looking for, an old hand crank Electrovox. She released the emergency brake and pushed it forward. She opened the truck, lifted up the cover and started cranking the flywheel. A man came out of the house across the street and she was about to run when he asked, car won't start? No. Need help? That'd be great. They took turns cranking the flywheel. After a few minutes Claire jumped in the front and pushed the ignition wires together. The car lurched, coughed and died. She did it twice more before the engine finally turned over. + +The man smiled at her. Strange day huh? Half of I2 is gone. + +Really? + +Oh yeah, just gray squares where my whole neighborhood used to be, can't get anything delivered in. Strange day. + +Yeah. Well, thanks for the help. + +No problem. He smiled and slammed the door shut. + +Claire was headed down Speedway toward the freeway when she saw a military convoy pulling off the exit to the left of her. Claire floored it and slipped under the freeway grabbing the frontage road on the other side. She skimmed the freeway for ten minutes, running red lights the whole way. Once she was well on the east side town Claire finally got on interstate 10. diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Claire/2_mexico.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/2_mexico.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c494efe --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/2_mexico.txt @@ -0,0 +1,284 @@ +Claire lay prone in the hot afternoon sun. Gravel dug into her chest and elbows as she balanced the binoculars in her hands. The narrow field of vision that came through the optics revealed the border, warbling in the heat. The road narrowed to two lanes in front of it and was flanked on either side by several sandbagged machine gun emplacements, though no one was, at the moment, manning the guns. She could see a full compliment of border guards, but most were lying in the shade of the trees off to the left, where a long-abandoned picnic area had once played host to families stopping for a minute on the way between Mexico and the United States. The customs building was small and glaring white in the sun. Claire could see a patch of blue on one wall, peaking through beneath peeling white paint to reveal what had once been an American flag. Around the front, next to the glass door was the Protectorate logo with blind justice and the familiar "to protect" slogan. Farther past the door she could see the large window where customs officials observed the crossing itself, though the sun was at the wrong angle to give her any idea who or even how many people might be inside. + +Spanning the road in front of building itself was a system of steel girders holding up scaffolding with more machine guns sandbagged some twenty feet up, above the Caution, You Are Now Leaving the Protectorate sign. Below that were several booths that once held officers who would simply look down, make an inspection decision based based on the biometric scans that surrounded the vehicles passing through. Now the lanes were barricaded off and limited to a single open lane. Clearly no one was just waving people through anymore. Claire knew the borders were tense. She had been reading about for the last two weeks in Tucson's dSheets. The UAS's decision to allow some forms of AI and it's ban of the Protectorate's bioengineered seeds had made the borders a focal point of what some thought would eventually lead to another round of fighting. + +Today there was just one biodiesel truck pulled to the side of the road, stopped a bit before the customs building. She could see the driver, hands zip-tied behind his back, sitting on a bike rack in the shade. Through the binoculars Claire thought he looked like a UAS citizen, though she couldn't see his wrist to tell for sure. He had a heavy black mustache that obscured his lips, but Claire thought he looked bored, not overly concerned that he was cuffed while three protectorate soldiers torn apart the back of his truck. He flinched when one of the soldiers pitched a box to the ground, but otherwise he did not seem worried. Or, Claire thought, he's just really good at hiding his fear. + +Beyond the Protectorate border she could see a stretch of no man's land, about fifty meters she guessed, full of barbed razor wire and warning signs about staying in your vehicle or being shot. The banner on the UAS side said simply welcome, though above it was the same type of scaffolding walkway, bristling with machine guns trained down on the no man's land. Again, there was no one maning the guns. Most of the soldiers must be inside she reasoned since there were few to be seen milling around the spartan building that she assumed held the customs and immigration office. There was no one on the UAS side waiting to attempt a crossing. The bulk of traffic coming in to the Protectorate in this region was passing through the much larger border to the west, just south of Tombstone. + +Claire set the glasses down and rolled over looking up at the sky. She watched a small, lonely patch of clouds blowing overhead. Now what? Clearly, she thought, there was no way to just waltz through, wave some papers, show a little skin and walk off into the UAS, where, although not entirely welcome, she was at least not a wanted fugitive. She was pretty sure that whatever the sonic boom had been had nothing to do with her, but clearly it had someone spooked. She was also beginning to think that her disappearing home room in I2 was also not directly related to her either. The man at the roadside outfitters store, where she had purchased the binoculars and a small alcohol-burning stove, was the fourth person to tell her that his I2 properties had evaporated. Claire was beginning to suspect massive server failure. She was also pretty sure that the server failure had something to do with the sonic boom. But the daemon sniffing around her half-deleted I2 space was definitely looking for her. Still, whatever had convinced the agents to leave her grandmother's house, she reasoned, was big enough that for now, she was insignificant. Whether or not she was insignificant enough to slip through the border without hassle was what she needed to find out. + +The Nogales border was not the most sophisticated she had crossed, but it still had several bioscanners and would definitely require her to show some sort of identification. She had no Protectorate biochip and nothing that identified her as being a citizen of UAS either. All she had was the forged Greenada passport Sil had given her years ago. She wiped the sweat from her brow and cursed herself for not buying sunscreen at the outfitting store. She rolled back over and stared at the sonic fence that ran as far as she could see in either direction from the border. People crossed the border all the time. Sil acted like it wasn't even something worth talking about. She had done it by sea with his help. But then Sil had the money to pay bribes and pass through borders unmolested. She was pretty sure he had never tried to actually cross the sonic fence. She was pretty sure no one who had ever tried to sneak through the fence itself ever talked about. If they did they did it would be with some jittery form of sign language since they would no longer have ear drums or a fully functional nervous system. + +She wondered how long it ran. She swept the binocular to the west and looked at the ridges of the hills. The fence ran up the first ridge and then disappeared. Eventually she found it higher up on the next ridge. Did it go all the way to the UAS border in Old California? Did it really cover every bit of those mountains or had they skipped a few places to save on funds? She wished she could get an I2 connection to find out. She didn't want to climb all over the mountains just to find out that it did indeed run the entire length of the border. She thought about her great-uncle who had once lived not far west of here, a little town called Arivaca. She had very dim memories of Thanksgivings at his house, perhaps even a Christmas. Before her parent's plane crashed. Before her uncle gave up and moved back to Tucson. She remembered the sunsets mainly, how beautiful the mountains looked, the bloodiest red sunsets she had ever seen, and then the clouds turned purple as the light waned and night descended. She remembered her father sitting out on the porch with her uncle, Claire playing with her toys on the steps in front of them. Her uncle's house had been on a small ridge that overlooked the hill country to the south. He would smoke cigarettes and talk to Claire's father. Sometimes they would see immigrants moving down in the arroyos, picking their way through the mesquite trees and cacti undergrowth, long before the sonic fence, long before the Protectorate. Then she remembered hiking around her uncle's property with her father, long, rattlesnake-infested grass and jagged lava rock made walking slow and painful. Claire remembered falling on a lava rock once, how it gashed her knee, how the blood ran down her leg. She remembered watching it fall on a stalk of grass, trickle down its length, turning it red like a silver of sunset. She remembered sitting on top of the hill, her father holding her as they watched two men walking through the arroyo below. That's the way to do it, Clairebear. Her father pointed at the men below. We'll go back that way, stick to the low country, the dry gulches, the sandy washes. You'll be fine. + +Realizing there was no other choice, Claire gave up on the idea of crossing over in the wilds of the mountains and crawled backward on her belly until she was sure she was out of view of any cameras or bioscanners. She stood up and walked back down the hill, through the mesquite and Palo Verde trees, down to the river where the stolen electrovox was parked in the shade of a cottonwood grove. She pulled a jug of water out of the trunk and drank deeply. She debated whether or not she should risk bringing the car. On one hand, she reasoned she was already wanted for using artificial intelligence within the protectorate, punishable by life in prison, so adding a stolen car, a hand crank at that, to the list hardly seemed important. On the other hand she didn't want the stolen car to be the thing that gave her away. There was some chance, with communications obviously glitchy, that whatever bounty or bulletin might be out there alerting the authorities to her crime had not yet made it to this particular backwater of the border. She decided she would ditch the car and cross on foot, perhaps see if the zip-tied trucker would give her a lift, provided he got across. + +She drove back to the main highway and into Nogales. The streets were deserted. She passed an abandoned petrol station that had been half converted to a biofuel depot and still smelled of rancid vegetable grease. The main drag, which led down to the border crossing, was lined with abandoned curio shops, falling down cinderblock buildings with broken windows and collapsing metal roofs, just intact enough to remind the locals of better times. Claire parked the car next to the rusted out hulk of an old oil-burning Ford. She pulled her bag out of the trunk and stepped through the shattered glass of a tourist shop. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness she could make out cracked pottery shards and old cisterns lining the shelves. Broken glass and smashed up shelving littered the floor. In the corner she found a pile of once colorful woven blankets, no covered in dust and rat droppings. She pulled her t-shirt over her nose and shook one of them out. She opened her pack and pulled out the gun. She stuffed it under the pile of remaining blankets. She pulled out most of her clothes and sorted them on the floor, bandoning everything but two pairs of pants and a couple t-shirts. She stuffed the banket down in the bag, tightened down the straps and threw it over her shoulder. She looked around the back of the shop for a hat, but found nothing. + +Outside the sidewalk cracks were full of weeds. plastic wrappers lined the curbs and lufted in the breeze that had begun to blow. She noticed an ominous line of clouds on the horizon and considered going back inside the shop to look for a tarp, but decided it might feel good to be wet. She set off down the street, headed for the border, wondering where the some ten thousand inhabitants of Nogales were hiding today. She walked by what looked like the old courthouse, or what was left of it, a mortar shell having taken out the columns and collapsed the roof, she could see piles of the roof and other rubble half-hidden in the shadows. Outside a cypress tree was beginning to uproot the steps. + +Two blocks later she found a few of Nogales's inhabitants gather in the shade around what looked like an outdoor comida. Deciding she didn't want to go to prison on an empty stomach, Claire walked over and took a seat under the tattered blue tarp that provided a minimal bit of protection from the sun. A few of the largely male crowd glanced up as she walked into the shade, but most ignored her. They were staring at the ground or off into space, lost in thought, memories of dread. They were gathered in a crowd around the central post which held up the tarp, an old Mesquite limb with a shortwave radio hanging halfway up the pole on the numb of a long-since sawed off branch. The men looked much like her, dirty jeans and t-shirts, theirs stained with bio fuels that Claire could smell over the smoky odors of burning cow shit and sizzling meat. Above the hook where the radio hung were several bag filled with water, which did nothing to keep the flies at bay. Claire swatted at the air as she fished in her bag for some sort of currency. Eventually she gave up on the flies and walked over toward the grill, where a several planks of ironwood laid atop a stack of bricks served as a counter. + +A woman with blackened teeth smiled and took her order in halting English. Claire watched as she pulled meat and tortillas out of an icebox and laid them on the grill. Claire turned around and looked back at the crowd, trying to hear what was on the radio. A few of the men were watching her now. She noticed suddenly that the crowd was quite young, not one seemed to be over forty. Migrant workers she decided, still coming north in search of stronger currency. One man, with jet black eyes and a mustache that hid his lips watched her closely, as if trying to decide her story. Claire met his gaze and he smiled. She started to smiled back, but decided against it. She turned around and pretended to watch a group of children kicking a soccer ball in an empty dirt field across the street. The air under the tarp was dead still. It was oppressively hot. The air weighed down on her, felt like a lead jacket at the dentist's office. The tarp occasionally flapped in the breeze. The sound reminded Claire of the sails during her voyage to New York. If only the breeze would come under the tarp Claire thought, but there were too many buildings around, the wind remained tantalizingly close, but gave no relief. The woman turned the meat over, smoke from the grill became thicker as the grease sizzled on the coals. Claire took her lukewarm bottle of soda and went back to the table. The radio crackled as she drank. The Spanish was too fast for her to follow. Her ears perked up at the words atacar and Nueva Orleáns, but she couldn't imagine how that might affect I2, or produce a sonic boom in Tucson. And then she remembered her vision, New Orleans on fire. She went to the counter and asked the old woman sitting on a stool what the radio was saying. The woman handed claire a plate of rice and beans with a few hunks of bony meat and several tortillas. + +Atacar. Oil thieves. + +Oil thieves? Nueva Orleáns? + +Sí. The ships come, torres de perforación petrolera. + +Petrolera? Oil derricks? + +Sí. Derricks. The woman smiled, revealing a badly blackened set of teeth. Soon petrol. + +Claire nodded and thanked the woman. She carried the plate over to her table. She doubted Nogales would ever get any petrol, but it certainly gave the Protectorate army a leg up and would no doubt break the back of New Orleans, which had always been too far from the rest of UAS to have any real hope of lasting. + +Claire sat back down and stared at the plate of food, but suddenly she was not hungry. Her head was spinning, her heart racing. Was it just a coincidence? If not what else was it? How did you possibly see the future by eating a cactus? + +She forced herself to relax. She took a bite of the beans and began to shovel more food in her mouth, swallowing too quickly to taste it, forcing herself to eat since she didn't know when she would again. + +After she had finished, failing to learn anyone for the shortwave, she set out toward the border. Before she was even within sight of the actual border she passed a troup of soldiers sweeping down the middle of the otherwise empty street. A few glanced in her direction but none of them said a word, marching silently, doggedly through the heat. It wasn't until she reached the border area proper that she began to think twice about her plan. She didn't get within 100 yards of the border before two soldiers approached her. Both had M60s slung across their waist, hands resting on the tops of their guns. + +Is the border open? + +The soldier studied her for a moment before replying. Why wouldn't it be? + +Claire stammered, I don't know, the radio, she gestured helplessly behind her. + +It's open. Follow me. He turned and began to walk away, the second soldier followed suit. + +Claire fell in behind them. The soldier held the door open for Claire and she stepped inside the immigration office. There was counter with on one at it, overhead a ceiling fan spun far to slowly to cool move any air. Paint was blistered and peeling off the ceiling. Claire walked to the counter and looked behind it to find a man in customs uniform sitting at desk, feet propped up. The desk was littered with paper that seemed to have simply been thrown there. An I2 monitor behind the man was playing snow. Perhaps they don't know Claire thought, suddenly thinking that she might get through without anyone the wiser. + +The man looked up as she approached, but did not speak. Claire said hello, her voice sounded loud and the man half-started as though he had not been expecting her to speak. + +I wanted to cross the border. + +The man sighed, heaved his legs the ground with exaggerated effort and finally shuffled slowly over to the counter, pulling a form off the desk as he went. He slammed the form down on the counter, I2 crapped out again. You'll have to fill this out. + +Claire let her packpack slide to the floor and grabbed a pen off the far end of the counter. She leaned over the form and began to write the name that appeared on her passport. + +Oh and hand me your bag, I'll run it through the scanner. + +Claire lifted the bag up and handed it over the counter, the agent shuffled slowly back toward a door, opened it and disappeared inside. + +He returned a short while later with the bag. Bag's fine, was his only comment before sitting back down at the desk and propping his feet up. He watched as Claire finished filling out the form. + +When she was done he repeated the slow process of disentangling himself from the desk and returning to the counter. He then shuffled back to the desk and opened an archaic laptop. He set the form beside it and slowly began to checken peck the information into the machine. + +It took twenty minutes, which, after handing over her very high quality forged passport, she spent outside smoking cigarettes with the soldiers. + +What are you planing to do in UAS? the shorter of the two asked. + +Claire told a story about looking for her nanny now that grandmother was dead. Even Claire was impressed with the heart-warming details she created out of thin air and it seemed to somehow endear her to the soldier, himself a family man as he repeated several time. The taller man said nothing, just smoked and stared at the no man's land behind them. + +TK she makes it through the protectorate side + + + + +Behind the counter, feet propped up like his doppleganger on the other side of no man's land, sat a decidedly different looking official. The man was dark-skinned, looked of mixed blood and wore a bedded neckless tucked into a smartly pressed uniform. His hair was jet black and greased back from his forehead which gave way to equally dark eyes. His mouth curled into a something between a smirk and smile as Claire approached. + +She set her passport on the counter. He waved his hand, as if the passport were unnecessary and Claire's heart momentarily leaped in spite of his somewhat sinister expression. Then he puled his legs smartly off the desk and stood up. He walked to the counter, back stiff in a military pose, but with a certain grace. He stared straight into her eyes and Claire forced herself to return his gaze. + +I2 is down on their side yes? He said it matter-of-factly, picking up her passport and flipping through the pages far to fast to read anything. + +Yes. + +Yes, I know it is. Because otherwise you would not be here Miss TK, because they would have seen the two open bulletins, one under the name on this passport and one under your real name. Our I2 is working perfectly well. So is our new AI bioscanner which you stepped through a moment ago. So I know these things. + +Claire lowered her head. She considered saying she wanted asylum, but decided to keep her mouth shut. + +He stepped from behind the counter to her side. Place you hands behind your back please. + +Claire felt the zip tie slip over her wrists and then tighten. + +This way please. He marched her around counter, through the office and into what Claire too to be an interrogation room beyond. + +The man pulled out a chair and pushed Claire down in it. He went back to the office and rolled his own chair into the room, sitting opposite her at the metal table. He unrolled a dPaper scroll and began to study it as if lost in thought. Claire wiggled in her seat, trying to find way to stop the zip ties from digging into her wrists. + +he looked up at her with a certain interest. I have always wanted to meet a terrorist. + +What? I'm not a terrorist. + +It says here you are. He slide the dPaper across the table until the screen was right under Claire's nose. Claire saw a picture of herself, at least half a dozen years old. The headline said wanted for the terrorist use of AI. + +Do you see what it says? Reward? Yes? + +Claire saw a considerable sum of money at the bottom of the very old photograph of her. It was more than she had been paid to steal the collider data. + +You know that the protectorate bombed Los Angeles and has attacked Nueva Orleáns? + +Claire looked up suddenly. Bombed? + +Yes. Bombed. Early reports called it a nuclear bomb, but it was not. It was several of their new digital bombs. Concussion blasts, network disrupters. Either way, an act of war. Again. + +She watched her face, looking for a reaction. + +And now you want in our country. A known terrorist... perhaps fleeing, perhaps having already made a deal... + +A deal? I didn't make a deal. You said yourself the I2 is out over their, I snuck through. + +Yes, it is. Perhaps you did. But that's awfully convenient wouldn't you say? + +No, it's not. It's just the way it is. + +The man smiled and stood. He walked out of the room and closed the door behind him. He returned a few moments later with her backpack over his shoulder. He proceed to throw it on the table. He opened the top and bagan to pull things out, examining them briefly as he set them on the table. + +Eventually, when the bag was empty he tossed it on the floor behind him. + +He picked up a few of the clothes, shook them as if there would be something to fall out, eyed her suspiciously and then tossed them behind him, on top of the back. + +He inspected the blanket, curling his nose in disgust as he unfurled a cloud of dust from it. Stole this on the other side did you? + +She shrugged. + +He smiled. + +Only two items remained on the table, the box of ashes and the book. + +He picked up the ashes and shook it. + +Be careful with that, Claire spoke before she could catch herself. She lowered her head again. That's my grandmother's ashes. + +The agent recoiled from the box somewhat. He set it back on the table and opened the lid, peaking inside. You had your grandmother cremated? + +Claire looked down at the table, saw the ashes, a sandy brown and gray dust. She... her body was... She was killed in a flash flood. + +The agent crossed himself and put the lid back on the ashes. He did not say anything. He regarded Claire for a minute. She could feel his dark eyes beating down on the top of her head. She continue to look down, willing herself to tears, hoping that perhaps he would take pity on her. + +So you used AI inside the protectorate. That's a huge risk. That's life in prison. You must have had a good reason for that. Enlighten me. + +Claire shrugged. I didn't know it was an AI agent... + +He smiled. Yes you did. + +No I didn't. She glared at him. I just wanted to see my old house. My grandmother's death... I guess I was feeling nostalgic and wasn't thinking... + +That's not a very good story Claire. The man who paid you to get the information you have, would not be impressed. + +Claire felt the air suck out of the room, her head began to spin. She kept her eyes down trying not to betray the fear rushing through her, pounding in her veins and making her skin crawl. + +The immigration man just kept on smiling. + +I think, he said slowly, that you have the information on your person. + +I left it in Tucson. + +He arched an eyebrow. I doubt that very much. He walked around the table and pulled Claire up from her chair. He began to pat her down, feeling her pockets, the underwire of her bra, making sure to cup her breast in the process. She felt his breath on her neck, it smelled of fish and agave beer. She shuddered. + +He stopped and stepped back. It appear that you perhaps have it inside you... + +No. I left it in Tucson. + +He stepped in front of her and smiled menacingly. No. You didn't. + +He pulled a long knife from his waist band and placed it at her throat. If you know the people that hired you, and I know you do, you know that they want their information and they really don't care how I get it or what happens to you in the process. Do you understand what I am saying? + +Claire stared back in his eyes with hatred. I do. + +He slide the knife down and pointed the tip into her throat and then with single smooth motion, slashed the front of her t-shirt open, leaving a trailing cut down the center of her chest and stomach. A thin trail of blood began to leak out of it. + + +Claire's eyes never left the shining blade. The man flipped it lightly in his hand, hanging at his side. He brought it up again and held it to her face. His other hand reached under her shirt and pulled her bra out from her chest. He slid the knife under, letting the tight fabric of her bra push the point into her chest. Claire winced. Then he snapped the knife back toward himself, serving the bra. Claire threw herself forward as the knife went back, knocking the man off balance and sending the knife clattering across the room. Claire smashed her head into the man's head and the world went black, she saw stars, tiny points of light and then the room began to come back, a red overlay at first, but eventually taking shape again. The man was screaming. Claire rolled off him and threw herself to the floor in the direction of the knife. She squirmed until it was in her grasp and then she heaved herself up until she was standing. The man had slumped over onto the ground, bent at a strange angle, no longer screaming, Claire turned the knife in her hand and turned around, she squatted so she could see the point of the blade and then pressed it to the man's chest. She sat down with all her weight and felt the knife slide in. a gurgling sound came from the man['s throat. She felt something hot and wet splash against her pants and the back of her shirt. She stood up and turned around. Blood was pumping out of the man's chest in spurts. + +she leans back when he cuts the bra, pulling him away from the table and then when he cuts it, she falls on top of him and breaks his back against the edge of the table. Then she sticks the knife in him and kills him. Then she she pulls her legs through and cuts the zip tie off. Then she cleans up, leaves a note stuck to the man grabs her things and leaves. She takes the man's gun and makes a run for it. + +Outline: + +The soldiers find the man, but Claire is able to hide from them with the help of people in the shanty town at the board. Last scene she pulls out the ashes, opens the box and retrieves the key fob. She scatters the ashes on a hillside as the sun is rising. She sets out south. Then seque to Waiben being kidnapped. Then back to Claire losing consciousnesss in the desert. Then at the nunnery where she is nursed back to health and then smuggled south, down to the ameritown where Dean has his bar/whorehouse and Sil happens to be after escaping new orleans. + + + +Maybe Claire and Sil and Dean are trying to find Waiben to have him shut down the collider? + + + + + + +The desert stretched out before them, a void, grasses, sage brush, mesquite trees marking a river that Claire guessed was two or three miles from the small, featureless hill where she stood scanning the distance with the binoculars while, Chaz tried in vain to use an already tattered scrap of duct tape to make his Adidas hold up for another day of walking over a landscape dominated by sharp lava rocks, dry thistles and dead ocotillo bushes. Claire's own shows weren't in great shape either but she hadn't worn through the sole yet fortunately. She let the bincolurs fall around her neck and watched Chaz's back, the dirty yellow of his once white t-shirt soaked with sweat. It was nearly ten o'clock in the morning, they needed to find shade. + +It had been two weeks since they crossed the border. A shortwave radio in Marselo, a tinny five building village they passed through over a week ago had told them what they had already knew. "Nuclear devices" was a the phrase. It wasn't even translated to Spanish. Claire had peiced the rest together from her limited language skills. Los Angeles. Countless dead. Evacuation. Wind. Moving east. Symptoms. Emergency roadside clinics. Other words mashed in together that she didn't know, but could guess. Everything in the immediate fallout area had been evacuated, the borders were sealed. Quédese en casa. Mantenga la calma. La ayuda está en camino. América será vengada. + +Clarie caught the old man watching them out of the corner of his eye as he made a plate of tortillas and beans. She couldn't think of how to say radiation isn't contageous in Spanish. And then she began to wonder if that was true. Instead she sat in silence listening to the radio with the two women who sat silent and Chaz, who simply waited for her to tell him what was being discussed. Eventually the news stopped. An ad for laundry detergent came on. The old man set the plates in front of them and they ate. After dinner Claire managed to convince him to sell them a bag of beans and some torillas. She asked about water. Tanks, wells, anything, but the old man just shook his head. She wasn't sure if he meant no or that he didn't know. + +They spent the afternoon sleeping through the heat in the old man's living room and set out again when the moon rose. They pushing south, ostensibly away from the fallout zone, but Claire also knew they were now illegally in a foreign country in a time of war. She wanted to stay as far from the border as possible. After the first few days they realized they needed to avoide roads at well. So they walked through the desert grasslands instead. Often in silence. Each pushing themselves toward something that would make their flight worth flying for, but so far it was just desert and distant looming Sierra Madre to the east. According to an old map they found two days later at a long abandoned gas station there should be another town in just two more days walking time, but Chaz's crumbling shoes were slowing them down. Claire had always suspected that tennis shoes were not a wise purchase. Now she had unfortunate proof. + +I think it's about five miles to the river. Chaz made no reply. Claire had started to exaggerate distance whenever possible so Chaz would be happily surprised when something wasn't as far away as he had thought. Of course he still had eyes. He still knew where the tree line was. + +The terrain was getting worse as they moved southwest. Agave began to make the ridges impassable. All morning they had been traversing arroyos and following dry stream beds, only occasionally climbing the ridges to get their bearings and correct course. + +The sun was high in the sky before they reached the tree line and dragged themselves into the shade. There was no water. Claire cut a few prickly pear leaves and they sucked out the sour pulp for moisture. They put the last of the beans on tortillas and ate in silence. Chaz fell asleep and Claire stared at the map, willing it to show a river where there was, quite obviously, none to be found. She realized for the first time that they might well die out here. The thought produced a panic that rose up out of her belly, like an insidious snake clenching tighter around her chest as it move up her throat. She had to stand and pace for a few minutes before the feeling passed. + +She sat back down and stared at the map again. As best she could figure they were roughly half way between the the mountains and the coast in what had once been a flood plane, but was now just endless grass and desert. They could risk heading for the coast, Tordilla was probably no more than two hundred miles from where they were. Or they could change course and head east into the Sierra Madre where towns were scarcer, but water more plentiful. Claire set the map down beside her and put a rock on top of it. She slide down in the soft sand of the arroyo and propped her head against a piece of fallen mesquite. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +Claire's leg was asleep when she woke up; her body contorted around a white sheet. The pillow lay on the floor next to the mattress. She shook off the dirt before propping it back under her head. Claire was pretty sure she had been woken up by rat running over her leg but she tried not to think about. + +Windblown rain beat against the cracked windowpane. A trickle of water ran down the inside of the glass pooling in with its brethren when it reached the sill. The palm fronds beating against the metal roof sounded like the harsh crunch of chewed ice. The light was already almost gone, a dull grey twilight, the same dull gray twilight that had cast itself over the house for days had shifted to a smoky darkness as she lay watching the beads of water leak in the window and stream down to the floor where they found the cracks in the boards and disappeared under the house. + +The monsoon had finally arrived a week ago, filling their jugs as it run off the roof and postponing, at least for a few weeks, death by dehydration. Now Cholera or Typhoid were more likely. In the evening when the first ran came Claire ran outside and stood with her face up to sky, swallowing water as fast as she could justs like she had as a child. It was then, standing half naked in the rain that sde decided she would try for the sea. + +Later that night she lay on the floor and watched the water pouring off the roof in great sheets that splattered on the mud street in from of the hut and then began to roll down hill under the house. Lightening lit up the sky like like the thousand flash bulbs and Claire rolled over on her stomach to watch the water run under the house, digging gullies that she though might one day give the little hut a cellar, which made her smile, something she realized afterward, she hadn't done in months. Ever since then, around dusk, Claire would lie flat on her back on the floor, her head turned to the side and, in the illuminated glimpse of lightening flashes, she could see the dank dirt and yellow orange mold growing beneath the house. She did much the same thing the previous summer, when the stiffling still heat hung over the house and the world became so quiet she could lie perfectly still and hear the termites gnawing at the wood in the walls, eating out the house from a round her as she lay waiting. + +Chaz would come home in the evenings haggard, in a foul mood, smelling of alcohol and cigarettes, having spent the afternoon at the bar drinking the rot gut tequila that a few of the families still brewed in secret. Claire would watch him shuffle around the kitchen, open a can of stolen beans with the rusty knife he kept in his pocket, a knife that reminded her of the weeks in the desert when it had been all they had to cut into prickly pear ears and drink the foul smelling water of barrel cacti, which she had come to think might be worse than death itself until they got much closer to death... watching each other grow thin, eyes retreating into their sockets, skin leathery from the sun and lack of food... until Chaz announced that he was done trying to survive and sat down to die. + +Now the knife was so dull he could never stab it into the can with one thrust and would cut himself curse and grab the nearest rag, usually soaked in rancid oil or slimy black papaya seeds which would send him reaching for the faucet, too drunk to remember that there had been no running water for years. Defeated on all fronts he would then limp, dragging his bad foot behind him until, oveer to the couch where he would work at the can slowly, hitting the same mark until an opening formed and he poured cold beans directly into his mouth and eventually fell asleep without speaking a word to her. + +Later she would remove the can, tip him sideways and prop a pillow under his head. For the last week though she had been studying him, memorizing the lines of his face, the strands of hair hanging over his cheek, the the curl of his arms around the emptiness of the room, the sound of his breath as he slept... storing it up for the coming journey, trying to hold on to the parts she loved while letting go of the parts that had become something else, far different from the wide-eyed wonder, the bright willingness she had dragged into the peyote desert that first night in Tucson. + +She allowed herself one cigarette in the evenings, tobacco ground from whole leaves she bought in the market, which was really little more than two carts pushed into the shade of the pharmacia awning. She lit the cigarette and stood in the doorway watching the rain, thinking about how to procure some canned food for the trip over the mountains. Claire lived on fruit and soups made from vegetables she gathered and stole when she had to; Chaz still managed to find bags of rice, cans of beans and half rancid meat stolen from the men who paid him to drive the trucks. He had stopped sharing them with her some months ago, screaming about work and risk. It was the first time he hit her. + +Since then he had lived like a rat, secreting away stashes of cans, counting them in the mornings when he thought she was still asleep. She could hear the cans clattering in the quiet gray dawn just before the cruch of tires on the dirt and the slam of a truck cab door told her it was safe to get up. Claire had stolen a can of peaches from one of his stashes last week when the water ran out and she needed the liquid. She popped the top and poured the juice straight down her throat, letting a little trickle on her lips, the sugar burning the cracked and peeling red corners of her mouth. The next morning she woke up to fists raining down on her head slong with the lash of the belt she'd once forced him to eat, a detail that made her laugh inspite of herself, smiling up at him as the blood trickled out her nose.... But the salty taste lingered in her mouth after he had stormed out the door and made her think of the rumors that, on the other side of the mountains down by the sea things would be better. She sat in the doorway watching the trucks on the highway at the end of the street, realizing that her rarified oyster act had just been undercut by what Waiben would have called the crucible of reality... It was then that she realized that oysters were not so different from rats and that one was a delicacy merely the fickleness of whim... And she had plenty of time to study rats, sitting around the house during the afternoons, mending clothing and making watery soups from scraps of vegetables stolen during her morning walk through the neighborhood. Sometimes there was nothing and her hands would worrying the skin of her protruding hips, + +Two days later she stuffed Chaz's remaining stash of can in an old plastic sandbag sack she'd dumped out on the bed and covered with a sheet. The blue protectorate relief insignia bulged promentantly around the the water jug she'd stuffed inside hoping that it would last at least until she found streams in the mountains. It took both her hands to sling the sack over her shoulder and she still had no way to open the cans, save the industious use of stones, but nevertheless, undaunted she walked to the end of the street and turned east, heading up into the mountains... + +Over time she came to realize that he resented her more for making him live than for shooting off his toes. + + +Claire and Chaz deteriorate around the mention of waiben, distance, abuse but naturally the sex remains strong because its the only way they have left to communicate on the fundamental level at which all connections must happen be the connect mental physical or spiritual the commonality is depth and a particication in a realm beyond the waking one that surrounds us. + + + +not that this was change since the birth of El Norte, merely a change in the hands of power without the power itself seemingly affected at all. + + +from wikipedia: +Individuals experiencing starvation lose substantial fat (adipose) and muscle mass as the body breaks down these tissues for energy. Catabolysis is the process of a body breaking down its own muscles and other tissues in order to keep vital systems such as the nervous system and heart muscle (myocardium) functioning. Vitamin deficiency is a common result of starvation, often leading to anemia, beriberi, pellagra, and scurvy. These diseases collectively can also cause diarrhoea, skin rashes, edema, and heart failure. Individuals are often irritable and lethargic as a result. +Atrophy (wasting away) of the stomach weakens the perception of hunger, since the perception is controlled by the percentage of the stomach that is empty. Victims of starvation are often too weak to sense thirst, and therefore become dehydrated. +All movements become painful due to atrophy of the muscles, and due to dry, cracked skin caused by severe dehydration. With a weakened body, diseases are commonplace. Fungi, for example, often grow under the esophagus, making swallowing unbearably painful. +The energy deficiency inherent in starvation causes fatigue and renders the victim more apathetic over time. As the starving person becomes too weak to move or even eat, his or her interaction with the surroundings diminishes. + + + +.. the sand was so hot in those little valleys that even if you were watching them it was hard to detect movement because they were always shimmering with heat, warping and warbling the tree branches and rocks... But in the evenings the temperature was a little more bearable and that's when you'd see most of the people... My uncle owned the lot next to his place as well and there was an old barn, or more of a shed actually, gray, rotting wood walls, caved in sheet metal roof, but a structure that offered some protection... A lot of the bolder ones would spend the night there... On Thanksgiving and Christmas, which was generally to only time we went down there, I'd take out a plate of leftovers, some turkey and tortillas, corn mash, whatever we had, and see if anyone was staying the night. Ocassionally there was someone there and they'd hide at first but I knew enough Spanish to convince them that I wasn't going to hurt them or deport them or whatever. + +What'd your uncle do? + +Claire shrugged. He's part of the whole don't ask, don't tell generation. You know what I mean? They knew what was right somewhere deep down, they just didn't have the balls to act on it all the time so they kept quiet -- they didn't help, they didn't hurt, you know...? I wish he would have helped them... maybe he did, but I don't think so. Still. He was a good man. And he was gay, living out here in the desert, in about as "manly" a country as you'll find ... so I think he had a bit more empathy that most, certainly more than the rest of my family, most of them probably would have shot them if they had known they were there, but they lived inside the umbrella of their own experiences, which were pretty narrow... not that there's anything wrong with them, just that a whole lot of life seemed to pass them by... my grandmother was different though, she knew, she might not have always let on that she knew, in fact, she cultivated this aura of helplessness, partly I think it was the same generational thing, the female side of it, but partly it just the way she chose the exercise power, if you seem weak everyone ignores you, they don't any attention to you and so they drop their guard, forget you're in the room and reveal perhaps more of + + + +at's wrong with wandering in the desert, Claire mumbled under her breath. But then she gave in with a sigh. Okay, we'll go down to Nogalas and have a look. But if we end up in some FEMA camp I'm going to be pissed. + +Chaz laughed. You don't really believe in those do you? + +No, Claire smiled. But I bet they can set them up in a hurry. + + + diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/experiment scene.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/experiment scene.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..449778f --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/experiment scene.txt @@ -0,0 +1,141 @@ + +Stepping out of the car felt moving through an airlock, the door hissed as it opened, the difference in tempature causing an airlock effect that never ceased to amaze her. The even felt l the dry heat of a convection oven whirling in what + +, Tucson in the evening, sunset, heat evaporating dry dead grass in the yard, not the perfect catalog house Waiben has imagined, sitting at the kitchen table staring out at the yard. + +She had trouble following his voice. It warbled like a finch fluttering about its cage. The heat was unbearable, the air so dead still and dry you could feel the sweat evaporating before it could even escape your pores. + + + +The clacking of Waiben's typing distracted her thoughts. She watched Jimmy tap his foot distractedly on the floor to some unheard beat, his unruly rag of brown hair and thick, black-framed glasses nodding unconsciously. She smiled, this why I come back, not for the world, but for my part of it. And then the guilt shattered her vision. She had wanted. She had wanted to tell him, but he so rarely stopped talking. Though she knew he talked during these comedown session mainly for her benefit, it did make it hard to get a word in edgewise. But she also knew that the longer she waited, the worse the guilt felt. She slowly drew herself up, wrapped her arms around her legs and rocked back and forth. "Jimmy." she said his name shyly as if not wanting to disturb him. "My grandmother died two days ago..." She tried to sound matter-of-fact, but her voice betrayed her. + +Jimmy sat stunned silent for a moment. "I'm sorry, Claire why didn't you..." + +"Don't be sorry Jimmy, she was old, she was sick." Claire sighed, she could feel tears coming to her eyes, but she lay back down and stared blankly at the ceiling. "Actually she didn't die, she killed herself." The tears came more freely now and she made no effort to hide her face from him. "I don't know why I didn't say anything. I thought maybe it would come up when I was..." She waited to see if he would finish the sentence for her. + +He shook his head, but said nothing. + +She gathered herself and looked at Jimmy pleadingly. "Well. Will you come to the funeral tomorrow?" + +"Of course." Jimmy rolled down the top of the greasy paper bag and rose to his feet. "Let's get out of here. I'll let him know we're leaving," he said and walked quickly from the room. + +She listened to his footsteps padding down the hall, a murmur of voices, she thought of cranes moving slow over the marsh, ungainly long legs tucked behind them, momentarily streamlined as if just an extension of their bodies, gliding low of the reeds an cattails, the musty smell of brackish water at sunset, the first crisp of fall harking in gusts of wind. + +Claire dropped the still burning cigarette in the waste bin and slowly sat up. The chair was exactly as it had been, worn arms gone from taupe to a bruised gray, stirrups pushed to either side. The metal table, the tray of needles and potions, Benzedrine alkaloids encased in syringes, opiate derivatives still lying unneeded, a broken piece of glass tubing with burned ends lay to the side. The waxy black shelves behind the tray were covered in a grotesque ephemera of zoological oddities, reptiles in formaldehyde, a coiled rattlesnake, a horned lizard with its forelegs pressed against the glass, a scaly gila monster in beaded orange and brown faded by the glare of afternoon sun, the stuffed Toucan decaying on a broken palo verde branch, its gnarled scaly feet now held in place by wrapped metal wire. Higher up there were fossilized trilobites propped on plastic stands and the ghost image of a fern embedded in shale. She shuddered at the sight of a blind newt sitting on the top shelf its regressive eye sockets covered by a fine milky fold of proto skin. She grabbed her coat from the rack and turned to leave. She flipped the light and turned to pull the door shut behind her glancing involuntarily at the top shelf where the two-headed cat stared down at her, four accusing eyes reflecting the dusting moonlight. + +In the car they didn't speak. Jimmy brought the Falcon up to speed and slid onto the interstate. Claire watched the caustic yellow glow of the city on the clouds in the rearview mirror. She smiled suddenly, "My grandmother told me once that she used to chew sand." + +"Chew sand?" Jimmy fingered the locking shifter and flicked ash out a cracked window. Wind hissed in the slipstream. + +"Her family came west in the dust bowl. My great grandfather was dying of tuberculosis, they brought him out on the back of pickup, seven kids and dying man." + +"Sounds like a Faulkner novel." + +"Yeah but my great grandfather mysteriously recovered and ran off with a VA nurse, never to be heard from again." + +Jimmy chuckled, "sounds even more like Faulkner." + +Claire stared out the window at the sagebrush racing by in streaks of pale green lit up by the headlights. "My grandmother said there was so much dust and dirt and grit that it just leeched into your skin, clogged all your pores... and there's her father coughing up blood on the bed of the truck... and Gamma and her brothers and sisters sitting there spitting out dust every few minutes, deaf with wind, no one talking, barely able to even see each other... let alone hear a conversation... and they rode like that for five days, all the way from eastern Kansas to here.... My grandmother told me that at some point she just decided to stop spitting out the sand, she let it collect on the edges of her lips and every now and then she'd run her tongue over her lips, draw the sand in her mouth and try to chew it." Claire laughed softly. "I'll never forget her telling me that, she was laughing when she finished the story and she said it was one of her happiest memories." Claire turned to look at Jimmy. "Imagine that Jimmy, imagine if one of your fondest memories was of chewing sand... I wish she had told me why." She turned back to the window and the tears came again. She watched them in the reflection, they rolled silently down her cheeks as if they, and indeed her own face, belonged to someone else + +The streetlights gave way to the dusty darkness of a gravel road, they were enveloped in a dusty cloud, Claire rolled down the window and stuck her head outside, tongue extended laughing and crying at the same time, the wind whipped her tears off her cheeks and carried them out into the parched desert night. The dust and sand stung her cheeks and filled her eyes. She ducked back inside the car coughing and spitting. "Crazy woman," she muttered. + +The bar was packed and sweltering, sticky bodies thronged together, scrunched shoulders and craning necks, trickles of sweat were visible on necks and earlobes as Claire struggled through the crowd trying to follow Jimmy toward the back of the room. Amid little grunts of pain, whispers of apology and finally a margin of cool air from the back door. Jimmy broke through, dragging Claire behind him to fall into a booth next to a half drunk and grinning version of Sil, animated like a cartoon in the dim light of the booth. "Jimmy! Just the man I was looking for, starter died this morning I had to kick start the beast to get here this afternoon..." His voice trailed off as he studied Claire's dusty face, "What happened to you?" Claire groaned and let her purse drop from her shoulder to the cushion beside her. "I was trying to chew sand." She laughed and took the beer that Sil held out to her. He shrugged but said nothing. Sil was probably the only person she knew who never insisted on sussing out some greater explanation, or at least if he ever did so he kept it to himself. She laid her head on his shoulder. He and jimmy begin to talk of motorcycles. Claire listened half heartedly, wishing that the music would begin. It wasn't that she minded so much the talk of carburetors and fuel pumps, she even had a motorcycle herself, a gift from Sil and Jimmy who decided that anyone crazy enough to catapult themselves into the psychedelic realm of elves and aliens ought to have no trouble riding a motorcycle. And the truth was she enjoyed it, she even enjoyed fixing it since between the two of them they seemed able to scrap together only enough money to by some late seventies vintage machine that had hitherto been resting in some junkyard the two of them frequented when they went scrounging for parts. All things considered she would have welcomed a distracting conversation, but she didn't want to talk about bikes, she didn't want to talk about anything that wouldn't matter tomorrow. Beside which it was February and only Sil was insane enough to ride his motorcycle in the freezing cold nights of February in Tucson anyway. She threaded her arm around Sil's working her elbom into the warmth of his belly and thought about his curious, impervious detachment to temperature. She recalled once staying over at his house and watching him step out for a cigarette barefoot in the snow. Claire had once witnessed him dip his fingers in boiling water to retrieve a bobbing potato with apparently no pain whatsoever, just an embarrassed blush when he caught her staring, mouth agape. + +Somewhere on the far side of the throng that was now backed all the way up to their both such that a row of shapely asses and thighs threatened to impinge on their drinks, a saxophone began to tune, squelching suggestively and then the kick drums thumped once or twice and the show started suddenly out of the chaos of tuning a half disernable melody began to emerge. Claire released Sil and climbed up on the back of the booth, spine arched and craned her neck trying to see over the crowd. All the shoulders and stooped backs turned just so, perfectly aligning the emptiness between Claire and the stage so that her eyes met those of the dancer onstage and cannot avoid but meet them again. A writhing serpentine figure that that spiraled around the man with the metal chest, or rather with the metal attached to his chest. To his face. To his lips. It sounded like Paleolithic cave drawings -- dueling sculptors chipping at the same stone, part horrific cacophony, and part terrifying clarity. The dancer fell to the floor of the stage and then began to rise in slow circling motions, spinning as if to slow the motion of the earth to rob it of some spped that would cause everyone in the room to suddenly sieze upon this moment as fragmentory, fleeting, but not yet gone, to sieze it and hold it and never let go. The trio had been in town for three weeks now, a long pause on a journey into something only dust and angels were really fully aware of, pausing here to pack out the Rattle Bar and Grill which had not seen the likes of such talent in all it's barren days and for which the owner, proprietor and occasional bartender Sil Hawkard had been paying handsomely. And he made sure to ply Claire with plenty of free beverages to entertain and enlarge the ever flexible nature of perception such that a certain dancer of curiously indecipherable ethnic origins who had tendencies toward the affections fay, cherry-haired young women might continue to take residence in the dilapidated guesthouse behind the bar over the increasingly vocal grumblings of the saxophonist and the drummer who understandably did not see a future for avant garde jazz in Tucson Arizona. + +Later the patrons couple off in a haze of alcohol and dust from taxis circling in the drive, and the night began to take on a bruised character, like a drunk beginning to sober in a cold lonely jail cell. + +Claire excused herself to the bathroom. Jimmy sat up straight and eyed Sil out of the corner of his eye, "You going to the funeral tomorrow?" + +Sil nodded and sat silent for a moment as if weighing out the words that both of them knew would be next. "She wanted to tell you Jimmy," He spoke slowly and stared at his empty glass, fiddling with it. "I think she just feels strange because you're there, in the room." He looked up at Jimmy. "She thinks you know things about her that she doesn't know." + +"I do." Jimmy spoke matter-of-factly as if it were a thing of no importance. + +"Well, I'm just saying, don't take it personally if she doesn't tell you things sometimes, she's just protecting herself." + +"You make it sound like we're lovers Sil." + +"What the hell does that have to do with it? If you were lovers she'd have told you already, it's always your friends that really hurt you." Sil smiled ironically. + +Jimmy pulled a cigarette out of the pack on the table but didn't light it. "This afternoon she became her grandmother." + +Sil's head snapped up to meet Jimmy's gaze, "What do you mean 'became'?" + +"It happens quite a bit, she becomes other people, sometimes her family members, sometimes distant relatives I'm pretty sure she never even knew... + +"Are you going to tell her?" + +"I can't Sil." + +"Fuck what Waiben wants Jimmy, the whole fucking thing is going o get shut down anyway as soon as he publishes this stuff, probably even sooner. He's already skating on thin ice at with the University, once they find out that he's convinced DMT gives you access to spirit worlds or whatever shit he seems convinced it does, he's fucking finished. The scientific element'll finally go out the window and he'll pick up and move on in some other fucking direction. That's what he always does. The man is batshit crazy..." + +Claire sat back down next to Jimmy and suddenly glared at Sil. "He is not." + +"Claire I've known him longer than you, trust me he's batshit crazy. For the most part in a good way, but you just never know... I've always avoided delving too deep into his craziness. Frankly there's no way of telling what's down there at the bottom. I mean do you know anyone else who's fallen out of an airplane and lived?" + +"He didn't fall, he jumped." + +"I rest my case -- bat shit crazy." Sil slumped back and swirled the drink. "Jasmine my dear, when you get a sec I need a splash." The girl behind the bar nodded but didn't stop rinsing glasses and stacking them on the shelf behind her. + +Claire continued to glared at Sil, but on the other hand she did half believe him. Waiben, or Scratch as Sil called him -- for reasons no one seemed to be aware of save Sil -- was, at the very least, eccentric. Claire desperately wanted to ask Sil more about Waiben, but had always refused to out of pride. She knew Waiben was Sil had worked together for years, but then he had just left. Dropped the whole thing without so much as a phone call. Bought the bar and hadn't, so far as she knew, spoken to Waiben since. Neither Claire nor anyone else had ever induced either Sil or Waiben to elucidate on the situation, though neither spoke ill of the other, provided bat-shit crazy was not considered ill. + +"You look like you're going to skin me alive," Sil met her definate gaze with what he undoubtedly considered a warm, open sort of smile but which Claire found somehow intruding, as if he were listening to her thoughts. + +"Naw. Market's dropped out in pelts." She took a last drag from her bottle of beer and faked a smile back at him. + +Jimmy had become sullen and quiet. He popped a handful of peanuts in his mouth and slid out of the booth. "Time for me to go I guess, you coming Claire?" + +"Naw, I'll stay a bit." + +"Okay. I'll see ya'll tomorrow." Jimmy walked over shook hands with the bartender and wandered out the front door. Sil and Claire watched him go. + +"You finally told him?" + +"Did he say something to you?" + +"He asked if I was going." + +"Oh." She felt a sicking pit open up in her stomach. "Can I stay with you tonight?" + +"You'll have to ride on the bike..." + +Sil fell asleep the minute he took off his clothes and sunk onto the bed. Claire ran the water, filling the bathtub. She slowly peeled off her clothing and stared at her body in the mirror. Her hair was stringy and dry, her face rimmed in a thin layer of dust. She sighed and walked back into the bedroom to retrieve a candle. She lit the candle and turned off the bathroom light. She turned off the water and sank slowly into the tub. The water enveloped her like an electric blank on a midwest morning, she lowered her body further into the water and slowly let her head go under. Her hair floated up and clung to the surface as the watery silence filled her ears and the rhythm of her own heart filled her ears. + +She remembered the last time she had seen her grandmother. They were sitting at the kitchen table the yellow flowered curtains puffed with the first cool breeze of fall. Her grandmother asked Claire for a cigarette. Claire protested at first but her grandmother said it didn't matter anymore, she might as well enjoy what was left. Claire ended up giving her a cigarette and fished out another for herself. Her grandmother struck a match and held it up for Claire who had leaned in to light, meeting her grandmother's eyes as she did, struck at once that though the skin of her face was loose and drawn, her eyes had the same liquid brightness of a baby, the seemed to crackle with life in spite of the dying that surrounded them. Claire sat back in her chair and studied her grandmother's face as she smoked, wondering what how it looked, young and smooth, before eighty years spent in and out of the desert sun. + +Claire remembered thinking that to some people the desert was a hot wind at the gas station, something passing through and to be passed through. Others saw a sunny retreat from cold wind billowing off northern lakes; some saw it as an endless playground of sunshine, golf and hotel pools. Her grandmother simply arrived in it one day, accepted it and tried to swallow it, literally Claire realized now. + +"It used to be so beautiful here in the fall," her grandmother was staring out the back door toward the mountains. "Those hills where covered with junipers and in the gullies there were enormous Sycamores and Cottonwoods that turned yellow and orange..." + +Claire looked up at the hills now covered in houses. She remembered dimly, as a girl, walking in the canyons with her grandmother and grandfather, gathering leaves and looking for wizards and fairies in the shaded glades of trees, the cool moist air near the water, the dry crunch of leaves under her young feet. + +"It still is beautiful, though," Her grandmother turned in her chair and flicked a bit of ash into the kitchen sink. "Claire." She stopped as if gathering something up within her, "I'm dying." + +Claire lifted her head out of the rub and drew her legs up, tucking her feet under her and wrapping her arms around her knees. + +What is age made of, what shape does death take as it drew nearer? Perhaps it takes no clearer shape, perhaps death remains forever a stranger, perhaps it's life that has sharper shape when death approaches. If life begins in pleasure and ends in pain is it therefore necessarily futile? Is it just an expansive joke, me being the product of endless strangers' pleasure, rooted in their bellies and born through their legs only to end in pain? And what? Along the way move to feel my own pleasure and bear out strangers of my own, slowly plodding toward the pain? She thought of Aldus Huxley and his anesthetized, hallucinatory suicide. Was that cheating? Was the pain necessary? Was it still possible to die with grace, naturally, without the infest of disease, that latter day stranger come to roost itself like so many passenger pigeons returned home? She thought of her grandmother's pain, swept up in the rising river, the boulders, she wondered if it had lasted, if it had passed quickly or never existed at all. She wondered what her grandmother had thought of, sitting there beside the river, soaked through by the rain, watching the water rise, the distant rumble of boulders beginning to move, the faint white noise of the coming flood... and then... what? Claire leaned her head on her knees and watched the candle flickering. She remembered her grandmother's eyes the moist vitality in them, the tiny universes of memory floating in a saline ether with faint but visible stars beginning to glow behind them. + + + + + The couch is rough on the back of her arm, she steels herself for the needle and it slides in, just under her skin meeting the vein and she can feel the warm rush of liquid, a mild swelling followed by the first sounds, it takes no more than a few seconds and already the room is changing, crystalizing and creaking as though turning to an icy lake and footsteps above creek like children skating out on a winteris day, the coat rack next to the door begins to take on an crystal stuckture the crashing begins slowly like a forest of firs shaking in the wind after an ice storm the great crashing of icecicles sloughing off the dark needles and then the roaring gets loader and she knows. The room is gone, she stands on a forest floor of matted wet sycamore leaves, thin streaks of lightning glow to her left toward the mouth of the canyon She feels it binding in, tightly stitching her in like a cloud eveloping the top of canyon. There is the familiar collapsing, the falling inward, from the warm belly up. The silver-scaled blindfish is caught in the mouth of a watery serpent, thin cocooned body wrapped in sticky, fibrous light, peeling muslin and gauze, with scarlet flakes of skin like milky stars screaming across the night sky. The bending cottonwoods mark the wind crawling out of canyons and rocky stream beds to snag the last autumn leaves, plucked and shivering down into puddles of rainwater spilled from leaf choked gutters, running down to rivers to sea to night to the moss slick depths of winding subterranean swells, the rumble of rising waters, boulders smashing bank and bone, swallowing shoots of sallow and debris, the drowning. Starbursts and flashes in parallax at the edges of the horizon where the sun sinks and a streak of cloud paints waning purple across the western skyline. + When + +She is tightly stitched in cloud. Returning again, collapsing inward, from the warm belly up. Rising out of the swelter of underworld night, a silver-scaled blindfish in the mouth of a watery serpent, thin cocooned body wrapped in sticky, fibrous light, peeling muslin and gauze, with scarlet flakes of skin like milky stars screaming across the night sky. The bending cottonwoods mark the wind crawling out of canyons and rocky stream beds to snag the last autumn leaves, plucked and shivering down into puddles of rainwater spilled from leaf choked gutters, running down to rivers to sea to night to the moss slick depths of winding subterranean swells, the rumble of rising waters, boulders smashing bank and bone, swallowing shoots of sallow and debris, the drowning. Starbursts and flashes in parallax at the edges of the horizon where the sun sinks and a streak of cloud paints waning purple across the western skyline. Claire stands at the basement window trembling, arms crossed over her chest, a cigarette clenched between her fingers. The color drains out of the day like bleached laundry on the line, an ebb tide of evening light retreated across the gravel parking lot, chased by the shadows of a train descending into a tunnel, plumbing the unknown depth of rock and sand beneath the well-lit fixtures of day. Claire takes a drag and watches a Canyon Wren hopping on the ground in front of the window, its watery black eyes pausing from time to time to take her in, a breath, a shadow, a movement, the dry salt of cheeks pressed together. She can feel the cold stillness descending just beyond the smudged shelter of glass, a tuft of wind ruffles the wren and in a brown streak it disappears into the sky. The day seems to suck in on itself, a collapsing uncertainty, like so many passenger pigeons, broken-winged and exhausted, returning home on foot. The afternoon shrinks into night, pulling in reserve what remains, hunkering down in canyons and valleys, a laughing wind among the willows waiting out the night. Claire's cigarette continues to burn, but she does not smoke it. She turns away from the window and sits down against the wall, opposite Jimmy. + He stares directly into the gray-green pools of her eyes, noting the saline scales clinging to her cheeks, but he does not see anything he recognizes, instead there lies only a thick absence, sewn like cobwebs choking Juniper boughs. Does this help? + Help? Claire turns away from him lies down on the floor to watch the thin gray ribbons of smoke drift up from her cigarette toward the asbestos ceiling where the smoke spreads out, billowing in all directions as if suddenly robbed of purpose, drifting aimlessly now across inverted fields of thread and fiber, plaster and silence, a ghost wandering up out of the building leaving behind a body of ash. + Jimmy sat back against the wall, one leg drawn up studying his fingernails, slowly trying to work the packed bearing grease and smoky motor oil from under them. After a while he gives up on his nails and reaches into a greasy paper sack and extracts a boiled peanut which he shells in one smooth motion extracting the flesh and flicking the husk into a metal waste-bin to his right. It's not a question of helping is it? + We're going to be shut down aren't we? + Probably. + Then was it pointless? + Probably. Maybe? I don't know. He eyes her suspiciously, unsure of what to say. You should ash, is all he can muster sliding the aluminum can toward Claire with an ear grating screech that echos about the room long after the waste bin come to halt next to her arm. + Ignoring the involuntary shiver down her spine, Claire distractedly flicks her cigarette toward the can, arcing a spray of ash which splashes against the side of the can and dusts down, a trail of unattached white flakes falling like dead skin, floating down from some unseen body already departed but reminders, remembrances still settling on the soft angora fibers of her sweater. The skin you couldn't escape, the dust on the shelves, thin layers of everyone coating the world in a barely discernible varnish. + It feels like... Jimmy, I need... + He looks at her as if waiting for the thought to be continued, but she does not indulge him. He returned to his peanuts. + Claire hooked a bit of her black hair behind her ear and watches Jimmy as he eats. He begins to talk in an abstracted, detached manner that she find tedious, speaking as if the words were merely ideas, had no value themselves but what a listener might attach to them. She was still caught between the two worlds and had trouble understanding why he couldn't see that every word had a meaning, that language was not an abstraction but the very thing that constructed the world he lived in, the world she was slowly returning to, wondering -- is it possible to live mythically?. We sew each vital stitch, but not without doubt; a cell cannot survive without each constituent part, this is why Darwin suffers his thumb. She remembered the colors mainly, in these re-entry moments -- the color removed from light, able to stand and dance on it's own like some synesthesia of sight and motion, vision and touch, such that, like remembering the image of a sleeping loved one long after they are gone, something inside you wanted to burst outward with an indescribable and joyful sadness, a complete and total synthesis of opposites, with none of the bore of happiness, no hackneyed sentiment, without cynicism, without skepticism, where the sun alights your every nerve and you know that for what seems like the first time that you exist, really exist. She thinks suddenly of something her grandmother has once said, once something dies, you can't make it live. But lingering in this boundary land it almost feels like you could raise the dead, like perhaps you have and you simply don't remember it. Here the pieces seem, if not to fit, to at least possess a cohesive integrity that could connect the disparity of the clothes and the body, the ship and the sea, the rain and the flood, wave over wave under, so much movement and still so still, as if the sky filled your skull. A realization of the imagination, as Sil had said. Sil had also once remarked that the danger with tapping into the vast realms of the imagination, which, as he pointed out, bore a more than passing linguistic similarity to the word magic, is that you might suddenly find yourself having called up something you cannot put down, a notion that continued to haunt Claire every time she returned. And yet Sil was so utterly unperturbed by the world around him that Claire found it difficult to imagine him ever truly afraid of anything, though there were whispers of something, something and then one day he simply did not show up. But Claire continued, not in hopes of helping anyone, but because she couldn't let go of the feeling that this was a way back, that the continual projection outward and its commiserate return inward would allow her just once to exist outside herself, to live for one fleeting moment as everyone indivisible. + Down the hall from where Jimmy and Claire lounged in the dwindling twilight, in a small room lined with bulging bookshelves stuffed to the gills with a collection of scientific volumes from the usual suspects like Freud, Jung, Einstein, Darwin and Bohr as well as more esoteric tomes from the likes of Korzybski, Reich, Tesla, Leibniz and others, Waiben sits in wrinkled slacks with a partly unbuttoned lab coat that reveals a stethoscope and a coffee-stained shirt beneath it. He wears headphones and pounds on a keyboard in bursts and stutters of clacking keys, but he stares straight ahead as if reading his words off an unseen screen over the wall in front of him, perhaps backlit by an unseen projector with glowing unseen Aeolight tubes requisitioned from the Army Air Corp cum Air Force dumping ground not five miles from this very hospital. Eschewing the tendencies of his collegues toward frazzled chaoic hairstyles, Dr Waiben's head is closely shorn which never ceased to amaze those previously familiar with him only through his works, which was admittedly a small, though devoted group. That he was the pre-eminint scholar in his field was unquestioned, however, the exact number of competing scholars was not directly known, but assumed by most to be fairly low, which is not to say his illustrious curriculum vitae was anything to sneeze at. There was a brief residence at the prestigeous Koestler Parapsychology Unit at Edinburgh University which many would have killed to get into, though Waiben's habit of applying rigourusly scientific tests to his collegues' somewhat questionable methodology put him on the outs and eventually he left for a stint in Vienna, and then to Panthon-Sorbonne where he took up redience in the Applied Mathematics department until the student protests of the 60s when, making the ill-advised assumption that democratic protest had a strong future in France, he had sided with the students and shortly found himself deported back to the American shores from whence he came. Having then taken up residence at the recently defunded and dispersed Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Wouden College of Parapsychology And Esoteric Electrical Phenomena (P.E.E.P), owing to his groundbreaking work in attempting to test Riech's still controversial orgone-based "cloud busting" theories (a project funded almost entirely by the equally controvserial Montasano seed company, rumored to be seeking yet another means of holding the industrial farming industry over the barrel as it were), he now found himself marroned here in the Arizona desert with the dubious destinction of being the only scientist in the country legally authorized to administer Dimethyltryptamine to a baker's dozen of carefully selected patients on the vague premise that DMT might be useful in rehabilitating certain psychological borderline cases back to what was culturally defined as workably human. How he had convinced not just the FDA, but also the stuffy starched collar suits that oversaw the budgetary constraints of the University of Arizona at Tucson that DMT was a viable research subject was something even Waiben was only dimly aware of and with the rapid approach of his yearly report his mind had lately been trying with considerable effort to recollect the exact wording of his original Q and A with the suits. + Waiben rewound the tape and turned the page. The clacking noise took up once more, seeping past the open door, out into the submerged watery darkness of the hall. + There had been a time when Waiben was quite certain that his work was worthwhile, worthy even. He like to style himself as a garbage collector of scientific theory moving slowly through long disregarded tomes to empiraically demonstrate them false, one by one. But it was this negative hypothesis which put him at odds with not only those others working in the "fringe" fields of science, who naturally disliked his sharply critical repukes of their theories, but also the more mainstream scientists who either dismissed him outright, or couldn't understand why he wasted his time with theories he inevitably proved false. Lately Waiben had started to sway toward this later argument and was seriously considering retirement at the relavitely ripe old age of sixty eight, "just about a Christie's worthy vintage" his erstwhile collegue and friend from his days at the Sorbonne, Vandamire Scott quipped. "What you ought to do my boy," Scott suggested, "is get out on the lecture circuit. Quite a lot of these up and coming American Unies are only too eager to lay their hands on someone like us, *studied in Europe* they always put on the flyers." Vandameer chuckled, "You might end up in a nearly empty lecture hall down the the Humanities ghetto (perish the thought), but you'd be surpirsed who turns up... quite a number of impressionable young women who turn to 'kooky' scientific tomes to spice up their otherwise dull poetry. And you'd be amazed how the May-November romance seems to sparkle for them, at least for a night or two." Waiben dismissed the later notion as predatory ("evolutionarily necessary," Vandameer retorted) and so he sat late in the evening on a Friday typing up notes while Scott shagged his way through Conneticutt having stopped over for an extended dalliance in Watertown the details of which he was only too eager to relay during a recent phone call -- nipples like summer fruit my boy... Do you remember when your skin was taught? Good lord! -- Waiben hung up mid sentence. Which isn't to say Waiben was above the occaissional abridged affaire de coeurs himself. Lately he found himself unable to concentrate when a certain subject, Claire Bierce, was in the chair, an ever-present scent of peaches seemed to accompany her into the room, a delusion which Waiben was pretty sure arose solely from him discovering via her background forms that she orginated from the state of Georgia. Nevertheless Claire possessed an undeniable precessence, a musicality in her very movement hinted not just at a willful inclination toward the sort of deparity that men find similatneously appealing and horrifying, but also a depth of character that made you want to sink into her thoughts as if collapsing onto a feather bed to disappear into the relaxed ease of sleep. But having already lost his longtime research assistant, who protested an "inability to maintain scientific integrity when Claire is in the room," Dr Waiben was wary of his owning growing inability to do likewise, but, or perhaps, as he was only now began to appreciate, *because of* this lack of scientific objectification, Claire had unquestionably become the most valuable subject in his experiement. Hippy enthusiasm not withstanding, it was surprisingly difficult to find people willing to subject themselves to the rigors of Dimethyltryptamine. Of the forty or so volunteers who showed up at the initital public cattle call, only seventeen had passed the prescreening and of those only a dozen had returned after their first dose, which was in hindsight rather large. In the course of the next six months he had lost another to possession charges and another to Ohio, which Waiben freely admitted was the most humilating thing that had yet happened in his research career. However Claire made up for it, not just in her lucid descriptions and remarkable ability to retain organized thoughts where even the most skeptical of the others turned to jellied, raving idiots, but because she made everyone around her want to continue in spite of the increasing sense of futility that pervaded everyone involved, including Waiben. So it was irritating when tonight Vandameer's skin comment had unwillingly crept into Waiben's mind as he watched Claire's face, the billowing softness of it, the slight hints of a laugh line, a crease of time only recently realized on the vast pallet of youth, and it began to consume him in a way that no skin had since that afternoon in the sun-drenched Parisian apartment when, for one strange moment, while inside a young exchange student who, one foot on the ground, one foot raised on a kitchen stool as Waiben entered her from the front, in a moment of glaze-eyed lust breathed, "you make me want to be a whore," an Arabian Nights-like celebration of decandance and depravity which might well have been the only thing that pulled Waiben's mind back from the diaphaneitous realms of feminality, where he was encountering for the first time the full force of his own soul, in the momentary and then sustained contact with her skin, so incredably hushed and enveloping, the nerves of his own skin, by comparison callous, dumb and uncouth, relayed back a sensation that hinted at the falacy of the seemingly indelable seperation of one body from the next and rather implied that there might be elastic mingling of bodies, a slipping, AEther-like permeability between everyone, as if by a passage through the core fires of sun, he had suddenly emerged in some parallel universe where the word soul had not yet been worn out. + + + diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/intro to Claire, Sil and Waiben.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/intro to Claire, Sil and Waiben.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2eed343 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/intro to Claire, Sil and Waiben.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6 @@ +The mini blinds behind her made a metalic clicking sound whenever the door opened, strange currents of heat sucked into the stale air conditioned room and causing the blinds behind her to rise off the window sill and then clatter back. Claire considered the physics of it, the convection of hot air and cold and new that somewhere in the simple motion was a kind of precursor to a hurricane. She wateched receptionist swiveling unconsciously in her chair, smacking gum and talking to a friend on the phone. That the girl essentially had no chin was striking, so striking that on Claire's first visit she found herself wondered how anyone ever got passed it. At first Claire tried not to stare, glancing up from her clipboard furitively, letting her gaze drift down to where the girl's mouth seemed to just drop off into her throat. But now that she had overheard enough of the girl's conversation to lose any sense of sympathy she merely stared. It was afterall, not so much a deformity Claire decided, as a simple misfortune of bone structure enhanced by the headset that circled over from one ear to the other with a microphone extending out to where the ordinary person's chin would have been, but in the girl's case it simple extended out into thin air like a hitchhiker's thumb. +The pleather chairs made awkward noises whenever Claire crossed or uncrossed her legs and the hard wooden arm rests dug into her skin leaving strange patterns up and down her forearms. + +Claire watched a man about her own age receive the same clipboard she had and take he seat across the office. She shook her head and forced herself to concentrate, dutifully filling in the form, name, age, vitals, and then a short quiz she recognized as bearing some resemblance to the meigs brier eval form she had once filled out on a lark. +She glanced up occaisonally when the girl's conversation on the headset got interesting enough to warrant further attention, such that it took her over an hour to fill in the form, but she was relieved to know that the other applicant was taking just as long. + diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/lazlo shows up..txt b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/lazlo shows up..txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4146ec --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/lazlo shows up..txt @@ -0,0 +1,67 @@ +Waiben was well into his third bourbon, stumbling drunk around the kitchen, kicking a back of coffee about the warped linoleum singing softly to himself, tripping on a ripple in the floor and sprawling flat on the floor only to look up and see a pair of very dark, expensive looking leather shoes had somehow gotten through the back door. As he looked closer he noticed that the shoes appaeared to have feat in them and legs even, which were encased in black pants and led upward past an equally black suit coat to a familar and chill inducing face that was smiling down at him + Did I come at a bad time? + Christ. Have you ever come at a good time? How did you find me? + Come now doctor, this is no time for obvious questions. + Jesus. What do you want? + To save you from yourself. + Again? + Yes Waiben. + I fail to see why you insist on continuing this charade... + I know. But what you fail to see could fill a book. + Fuck you. + Well, it would be a significant improvement over your current situation. The man extended his arm down and helpt Waiben up to the kitchen table which he balanced on momentarily before easing into a chair. The main sat down opposite him, kicking the back door closed with his foot. + I suppose if you found me, that means they are close behind... + Yes. + So are we on to something then? Am I close? + The man smiled. Waiben, what you don't know could fill a book. + What about what you don't know? + Already in print. + Ha. Good one. Waiben rubbed his eyes and tried to focus. The man slid an envelop across the table, Waiben met his eyes briefly, he gestured for him to open it. Waiben pulled a string off the clasp and bumped the contents onto the table, a series of black and white photos grainy and out of focus but Waiben already knew the faces. + That was yesterday at LaGuardia. + Waiben looked closer, looking at the people in the background, a set of legs, a blurry skirt. + How much time do we have? + Well, they know you're here, but they're still in New York, meeting, figuring out the best way to procede. Maybe a week. Maybe two. + How did they? + Does it really matter? + Waiben pushed the photos away. Okay, what do we need to do? + Get rid of the girl. + What? + Claire. Get rid of her. + What do you mean get rid of her? Like kill her? + Waiben you're an idiot. And you're certainly not going to kill anyone. No, I mean break it off, distance yourself from her and destroy all the files you have, the tapes, everything. + Why? + + + + + + when the back door fell shut with a click and Waiben nearly fell over + + + + + +It was the first warm day in ages when Sil rode down to the campus. He parked the bike outside the science library and as he walked over toward the administrative building he took in all the girls dressed prematurely in their summer clothes and tried to remember why it was he had dropped out of college so many years ago. He lingered outside the double door for a minute listening the Waiben's voice, trying to gauge the reaction before he opened them slowly and slipped in without a sound. He stood against the wall in the back and eyed the panel, three men and two women sat majesterial at long table directly in front of Waiben who was talking about pyscology and the breakdown of the bicameral mind, the dislocation of the voice, the I from the position of external, the internalizing of the self and creation of the ego was an evolutionary necessity, but there is much that can be learned about consciousness by stepping backward..." Sil could tell the panel was unimpressed, the large man in the center who Sil thought would have looked more fitting in mutton chops, was pouring himself a glass of water. The woman on the end tapped her Parker on a legal pad and constantly pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her slender and apparently ineffective nose. Sil slipped out again and sat down on a folding chair in the hall. Waiben emerged with a clearly beaten look on his face. +"Syris," Sil called out as he walked out into the desert warmth. +"Sil. Was that you I heard come in?" +"Yeah." +"At least I can finish out the semester. I'm not going to, but I still get the money." +"That's good. How have you been?" +"I'm tired. And hungry, would you join me for lunch?" +The walked across campus to a small diner that served breakfast all day and Waiben ordered an omlette. Sil watched him eat and sipped a warm beer. "Do you remember Von Hock at Cambridge?" +"Was that the nut job that thought Yuri Gellar was visionary mystic?" +No. That was Von Statler, you're confusing your Germans. Von Hock was the one that thought Alexandrian Library was actually saved and squirreled away in the vault in Venice or something." +"Oh yeah. With the grad student..." +"Corrinne. Yeah. She spoke seven languages, did you know that?" +Waiben raised his eyebrows. "Well, I did hear she was quite talented with her tongue, but to be honest I didn't take it that way." +"Very funny. No. She was brilliant." Sil temporarily drifts. "But the reason I ask is that." He stops to take a sip of beer. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. +"You can't smoke in here." +"No, you can't get caught smoking in here." Sil lit his cigarette, holding it between his thumb and forefinger the rest of his hand curled over it. He took a drag and thrust his hand under the table. He exhaled down to his left and waved his hand to clear the smoke. "This is going to sound a bit crazy, which is why I'm telling you." +Waiben noticed for the first time that Sil looked slightly different, exhausted perhaps. There were dark rings around his eyes, his cheeks slightly sunken, his hand shook slightly when he reached for his beer. Waiben watched him as he talked thinking of the day, several weeks past that he had taken off his headphone and stood up from his desk to retrieve a book from his shelf and he had heard grunting and moaning. Waiben had been in academic setting long enough to know that the best course of action was to put on his headphones and go back to work, but he'd also been in academic settings long enough to not need to do anything more than that. Sil knew he realized, had probably known a lot longer than Waiben given Sil's preternatural intuition. +But as he listened to Sil's story he slowly began to doubt that his sleeplessness had anything to do with Claire. At some point a familar chill passed down his spine the likes of which he had not felt in years, probably since Paris. +"You think it's him?" Waiben said finally. +"Yes I do." + + + +
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/notes.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/notes.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fec9b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/notes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,569 @@ +tPerhaps these two books are in fact that same. + +We start with Sil and Dean launching the boat, Sil off to handle the last big smuggling run, the intro to Claire who is in new york, the tanks come rolling in, Claire is taken prisoner, Sil sets off to find her. Dean is with the little girl? or she ends up with Sil? + +Or maybe Claire is not in new york, Maya is, Sil sets off to find her but never does. Instead he finds the little girl? + +How does Claire fit in in that scenario? + +how is the intro to the other book useful in that case? + +The three are friends? Is jimmy a separate character? is he dean? + +Is scratch lazlo? mellowed with age. even though he doesn't age. mellowed with the passing of time? + +Or do I just not want to write the first book and yet am scared to tackle the second? + +1 + + +She is tightly stitched in cloud. Returning again, collapsing inward, from the warm belly up, rising out of the swelter of underworld night, a silver-scaled blindfish in the mouth of a watery serpent, thin cocooned body wrapped in sticky, fibrous light, peeling muslin and gauze, with scarlet flakes of skin like milky stars screaming across the night sky. The bending cottonwoods mark the wind crawling out of canyons and rocky stream beds to snag autumn's last leaves, plucked and shivering down into puddles of rainwater spilled from leaf choked gutters, running down to rivers to sea to night to the moss slick depths of winding subterranean swells, the rumble of rising waters, boulders smashing bank and bone, swallowing shoots of sallow and debris, the drowning. Starbursts and flashes in parallax at the edges of the horizon where the sun sinks and a streak of cloud paints waning purple across the western skyline. Claire stood at the basement window trembling, arms crossed over her chest, a cigarette clenched between her fingers. The color drained out of the day like bleached laundry on the line, an ebb tide of evening light retreated across the gravel parking lot chased by the shadows of a train descending into a tunnel, plumbing the unknown depth of rock and sand beneath the well-lit fixtures of day. Claire took a drag and watched a canyon wren hopping on the ground in front of the window, its watery black eyes pausing from time to time to take her in, a breath, a shadow, a movement, the dry salt of cheeks pressed together. She could feel the cold stillness descending just beyond the smudged shelter of glass, a tuft of wind ruffled the wren and in a black streak it disappeared into the sky. The day seemed to suck in on itself, a collapsing uncertainty, like so many passenger pigeons, limping, broken-winged and exhausted, returning home on foot. The afternoon shrunk into night, pulled in reserve what remained, hunkering down in canyons and valleys, a laughing wind among the willows waiting out the night. Claire's cigarette continued to burn, but she did not smoke it. She turned away from the window and sat down against the wall, opposite Jimmy. + +He stared directly into the gray-green pools of her eyes, noting the saline scales clinging to her cheeks, but he did not see anything he recognized, instead there lay only a thick absence, sewn like cobwebs choking juniper boughs. "Does this help?" + +"Help?" Claire turned away from him lay down on the floor and watched the thin gray ribbons of smoke drift up from her cigarette toward the asbestos ceiling where the smoke spread out, billowing in all directions as if suddenly robbed of purpose, drifting aimlessly now across inverted fields of thread and fiber, plaster and silence, a ghost wandering up out of the building leaving behind a body of ash. + +Jimmy sat back against the wall, one leg drawn up studying his fingernails, slowly trying to work the packed bearing grease and smoky motor oil from under them. After a while he gave up on his nails and reached into a greasy paper sack and extracted a boiled peanut which he shelled in one smooth motion extracting the flesh and flicking the husk into a metal waste-bin to his right. "It's not a question of helping is it?" + +She ignored his question. "We're going to be shut down aren't we?" + +"Probably." + +"Then was it pointless?" + +"Probably. Maybe? I don't know." He eyed her suspiciously unsure of what to say. "You should ash," he said finally, sliding the aluminum can toward Claire with an ear grating screech that continue to echo about the room long after the waste bin came to halt next to her arm. + +Ignoring the involuntary shiver down her spine, Claire distractedly flicked her cigarette toward the can, arcing a spray of ash which splashed against the side of the can and dusted down, a trail of unattached white flakes fell like dead skin left behind, floating down from some unseen body already departed but reminders, remembrances still settling on the soft angora fibers of her sweater, the skin you couldn't escape, the dust on the shelves, thin layers of everyone coating the world in a barely discernible varnish. + +"It feels like... Jimmy, I need..." + +He looked at her as if waiting for the thought to be continued, but she did not indulge him. He returned to his peanuts. + +Claire hooked a bit of her reddish hair behind her ear and watched Jimmy as he ate. He began to talk in an abstracted, detached manner that she found tedious, speaking as if the words were merely ideas, had no value themselves but what a listener might attach to them. She was still caught between the two worlds and had trouble understanding why he couldn't see that every word had a meaning, that language was not an abstraction but the very thing that constructed the world he lived in, the world she was slowly returning to wondering -- is it possible to live mythically?. We sew each vital stitch, but not without doubt; a cell cannot survive without each constituent part, this is why Darwin suffers his thumb. She remembered the colors mainly, in these re-entry moments -- the color removed from light, able to stand and dance on it's own like some synesthesia of sight and motion, vision and touch, such that, like remembering the image of a sleeping loved one long after they are gone, something inside you wanted to burst outward with an indescribable and joyful sadness, a complete and total synthesis of opposites, with none of the bore of happiness, no hackneyed sentiment, without cynicism, without skepticism, where the sun alights your every nerve and you know that for what seems like the first time that you exist, really exist. She thought suddenly of something her grandmother has once said, *once something dies, you can't make it live*. But lingering in this boundary land it almost felt like you could raise the dead, like perhaps you have and you simply don't remember it. Here the pieces seemed, if not to fit, to at least possess a cohesive integrity that could connect the disparity of the clothes and the body, the ship and the sea, the rain and the flood, wave over wave under, so much movement and still so still, as if the sky filled your skull. "A realization of the imagination," as Sil had said. Sil had also once remarked that the danger with tapping into the vast realms of the imagination, which as he pointed out bore a more than passing linguistic similarity to the word magic, is that you might suddenly find yourself having called up something you cannot put down, a notion that continued to haunt Claire every time she returned. And yet Sil was so utterly unperturbed by the world around him that Claire found it difficult to imagine him ever truly afraid of anything, though there were whispers of something, something she had thus far refrained from asking him about -- and then one day he simply did not show up. But Claire continued, not in hopes of helping anyone, but because she couldn't let go of the feeling that this was a way back, that the continual projection outward and its commiserate return inward would allow her just once to exist outside herself, to live for one fleeting moment as not Claire but as everyone indivisible. + +Down the hall from where Jimmy and Claire lounged in the dwindling twilight, in a small room lined with bulging bookshelves stuffed to the gills with a collection of scientific volumes from the usual suspects like Freud, Jung, Einstein, Darwin and Bohr as well as more esoteric tomes from the likes of Korzybski, Reich, Tesla, Leibniz and others, sat man in wrinkled slacks with a partly unbuttoned lab coat that revealed a stethoscope and a coffee-stained shirt beneath it. The man wore headphones and pounded on a keyboard in burst and stutters of clacking keys, but he stared straight ahead as if reading his words off an unseen screen over the wall in front of him, perhaps backlit by an unseen projector with glowing unseen Aeolight tubes requisitioned from the Army Air Corp cum Air Force dumping ground not five miles from this very hospital. Eschewing the tendencies of his collegues toward frazzled chaoic hairstyles, Dr Waiben's head was closely shorn which never ceased to amaze those previously familiar with him only through his works, which was admittedly a small, though devoted group. That he was the preminint scholar in his field was unquestioned, however, the exact number of competing scholars was not directly known, but assumed by most to be fairly low, which is not to say his illustrious curriculum vitae was anything to sneeze at... having studied at the prestigeous Koestler Parapsychology Unit at Edinburgh University, he briefly took up residence there, though his leaning toward applying rigourusly scientific tests to his collegues somewhat questionable methodology put him on the outs, eventually he left for a stint in Vienna, and then to Panthon-Sorbonne where he took up redience in the Applied Mathematics department until the student protests of the sixties, when, making the ill-advised assumption that democratic protest had a strong future in France, he had sided with the students and shortly found himself deported back to the American shores from whence he came. Having then taken up residence at the recently defunded and dispersed Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Woulden College of Parapsychology And Esoteric Electrical Phenomena (P.E.E.P), owing to his groundbreaking work in attempting to test Riech's still controversial orgone-based "cloud busting" theories (a project funded almost entirely by the equally controvserial Montasano seed company, rumored to be seeking yet another means of holding the industrial farming industry over the barrel as it were) he now found himself marroned here in the Arizona desert with the dubious destinction of being the only scientist in the country legally authorized to administer Dimethyltryptamine to a baker's dozen of carefully selected patients on the vague premise that DMT might be useful in rehabilitating certain psychological borderline cases back to what was culturally defined as workably human. How he had convinced not just the FDA, but also the stuffy starched collar suits that oversaw the budgetary constraints of the University of Arizona at Tucson that DMT was a viable research subject was something even Waiben was only dimly aware of and with the rapid approach of his half yearly report his mind had lately been trying with considerable effort to recollect the exact wording of his original Q and A with the suits. + +There had been a time when Waiben was quite certain that his work was worthwhile, worthy even. He like to style himself as a garbage collector of scientific theory moving slowly through long disregarded tomes to empiraically demostrate them false, one by one, despite that fact that he tended to work from a negative hypothesis which put him at odds with not only those others working in the "fringe" fields of science, who naturally disliked his sharply critical repukes of their theories, but also the more mainstream scientists who either dismissed him outright, or couldn't understand why he wasted his time with theories he inevitably proved false. Lately Waiben had started to sway toward this later argument and was seriously considering retirement at the relavitely ripe old age of sixty eight, "just about a Christie's worthy vintage" his erstwhile collegue and friend from his days at the Sorbonne, Vandamire Scott quipped. "What you ought to do my boy," Scott suggested, "is get out on the lecture circuit. Quite a lot of these up and coming American Unies are only too eager to lay their hands on someone like us, *studied in Europe* they always put on the flyers." Vandameer chuckled, "You might end up in a nearly empty lecture hall down the the Humanities ghetto (perish the thought), but you'd be surpirsed who turns up... quite a number of impressionable young women who turn to 'kooky' scientific tomes to spice up their otherwise dull poetry. And you'd be amazed how the May-November romance seems to sparkle for them, at least for a night or two." Waiben dismissed the later notion as predatory ("evolutionarily necessary," Vandameer retorted) and so he sat late in the evening on a Friday typing up notes while Scott shagged his way through Conneticutt having stopped over for an extended dalliance in Watertown the details of which he was only too eager to relay during a recent phone call -- nipples like summer fruit my boy... Do you remember when your skin was taught? Good lord! -- Waiben hung up mid sentence. Which isn't to say Waiben was above the occaissional abridged affaire de coeurs himself. Lately he found himself unable to concentrate when a certain subject, Claire Bierce, was in the chair, an ever-present scent of peaches seemed to accompany her into the room, a delusion which Waiben was pretty sure arose solely from him discovering via her background forms that she orginated from the state of Georgia. Nevertheless Claire possessed an undeniable precessence, a musicality in her very movement hinted not just at a willful inclination toward the sort of deparity that men find similatneously appealing and horrifying, but also a depth of character that made you want to sink into her thoughts as if collapsing onto a feather bed to disappear into the relaxed ease of sleep. But having already lost his longtime research assistant, who protested an "inability to maintain scientific integrity when Claire is in the room," Dr Waiben was wary of his owning growing inability to do likewise, but, or perhaps, as he was only now began to appreciate, *because of* this lack of scientific objectification, Claire had unquestionably become the most valuable subject in his experiement. Hippy enthusiasm not withstanding, it was surprisingly difficult to find people willing to subject themselves to the rigors of Dimethyltryptamine. Of the forty or so volunteers who showed up at the initital public cattle call, only seventeen had passed the prescreening and of those only a dozen had returned after their first dose, which was in hindsight rather large. In the course of the next six months he had lost another to possession charges and another to Ohio, which Waiben freely admitted was the most humilating thing that had yet happened in his research career. However Claire made up for it, not just in her lucid descriptions and remarkable ability to retain organized thoughts where even the most skeptical of the others turned to jellied, raving idiots, but because she made everyone around her want to continue in spite of the increasing sense of futility that pervaded everyone involved, including Waiben. So it was irritating when tonight Vandameer's skin comment had unwillingly crept into Waiben's mind as he watched Claire's face, the billowing softness of it, the slight hints of a laugh line, a crease of time only recently realized on the vast pallet of youth, and it began to consume him in a way that no skin had since that afternoon in the sun-drenched Parisian apartment when, for one strange moment, while inside a young exchange student who, one foot on the ground, one foot raised on a kitchen stool as Waiben entered her from the front, in a moment of glaze-eyed lust breathed, "you make me want to be a whore," an Arabian Nights-like celebration of decandance and depravity which might well have been the only thing that pulled Waiben's mind back from the diaphaneitous realms of feminality, where he was encountering for the first time the full force of his own soul, in the momentary and then sustained contact with her skin, so incredably hushed and enveloping, the nerves of his own skin, by comparison callous, dumb and uncouth, relayed back a sensation that hinted at the falacy of the seemingly indelable seperation of one body from the next and rather implied that there might be elastic mingling of bodies, a slipping, AEther-like permeability between everyone, as if by a passage through the core fires of sun, he had suddenly emerged in some parallel universe where the word soul had not yet been worn out. + +Waiben rewound the tape and turned the page. The clacking noise took up once more, seeping past the open door, out into the submerged watery darkness of the hall. + +Claire was back now. With all the depressing letdown that inevitably brought with it. She distracted herself listening to Jimmy, but the utter disappointment of satiation would not retreat that easily and she had trouble following his voice. It warbled like a finch fluttering about its cage. The clacking of Waiben's typing distracted her thoughts. She watched Jimmy tap his foot distractedly on the floor to some unheard beat, his unruly rag of brown hair and thick, black-framed glasses nodding unconsciously. She smiled, this why I come back, not for the world, but for my part of it. And then the guilt shattered her vision. She had wanted. She had wanted to tell him, but he so rarely stopped talking. Though she knew he talked during these comedown session mainly for her benefit, it did make it hard to get a word in edgewise. But she also knew that the longer she waited, the worse the guilt felt. She slowly drew herself up, wrapped her arms around her legs and rocked back and forth. "Jimmy." she said his name shyly as if not wanting to disturb him. "My grandmother died two days ago..." She tried to sound matter-of-fact, but her voice betrayed her. + +Jimmy sat stunned silent for a moment. "I'm sorry, Claire why didn't you..." + +"Don't be sorry Jimmy, she was old, she was sick." Claire sighed, she could feel tears coming to her eyes, but she lay back down and stared blankly at the ceiling. "Actually she didn't die, she killed herself." The tears came more freely now and she made no effort to hide her face from him. "I don't know why I didn't say anything. I thought maybe it would come up when I was..." She waited to see if he would finish the sentence for her. + +He shook his head, but said nothing. + +She gathered herself and looked at Jimmy pleadingly. "Well. Will you come to the funeral tomorrow?" + +"Of course." Jimmy rolled down the top of the greasy paper bag and rose to his feet. "Let's get out of here. I'll let him know we're leaving," he said and walked quickly from the room. + +She listened to his footsteps padding down the hall, a murmur of voices, she thought of cranes moving slow over the marsh, ungainly long legs tucked behind them, momentarily streamlined as if just an extension of their bodies, gliding low of the reeds an cattails, the musty smell of brackish water at sunset, the first crisp of fall harking in gusts of wind. + +Claire dropped the still burning cigarette in the waste bin and slowly sat up. The chair was exactly as it had been, worn arms gone from taupe to a bruised gray, stirrups pushed to either side. The metal table, the tray of needles and potions, Benzedrine alkaloids encased in syringes, opiate derivatives still lying unneeded, a broken piece of glass tubing with burned ends lay to the side. The waxy black shelves behind the tray were covered in a grotesque ephemera of zoological oddities, reptiles in formaldehyde, a coiled rattlesnake, a horned lizard with its forelegs pressed against the glass, a scaly gila monster in beaded orange and brown faded by the glare of afternoon sun, the stuffed Toucan decaying on a broken palo verde branch, its gnarled scaly feet now held in place by wrapped metal wire. Higher up there were fossilized trilobites propped on plastic stands and the ghost image of a fern embedded in shale. She shuddered at the sight of a blind newt sitting on the top shelf its regressive eye sockets covered by a fine milky fold of proto skin. She grabbed her coat from the rack and turned to leave. She flipped the light and turned to pull the door shut behind her glancing involuntarily at the top shelf where the two-headed cat stared down at her, four accusing eyes reflecting the dusting moonlight. + +In the car they didn't speak. Jimmy brought the Falcon up to speed and slid onto the interstate. Claire watched the caustic yellow glow of the city on the clouds in the rearview mirror. She smiled suddenly, "My grandmother told me once that she used to chew sand." + +"Chew sand?" Jimmy fingered the locking shifter and flicked ash out a cracked window. Wind hissed in the slipstream. + +"Her family came west in the dust bowl. My great grandfather was dying of tuberculosis, they brought him out on the back of pickup, seven kids and dying man." + +"Sounds like a Faulkner novel." + +"Yeah but my great grandfather mysteriously recovered and ran off with a VA nurse, never to be heard from again." + +Jimmy chuckled, "sounds even more like Faulkner." + +Claire stared out the window at the sagebrush racing by in streaks of pale green lit up by the headlights. "My grandmother said there was so much dust and dirt and grit that it just leeched into your skin, clogged all your pores... and there's her father coughing up blood on the bed of the truck... and Gamma and her brothers and sisters sitting there spitting out dust every few minutes, deaf with wind, no one talking, barely able to even see each other... let alone hear a conversation... and they rode like that for five days, all the way from eastern Kansas to here.... My grandmother told me that at some point she just decided to stop spitting out the sand, she let it collect on the edges of her lips and every now and then she'd run her tongue over her lips, draw the sand in her mouth and try to chew it." Claire laughed softly. "I'll never forget her telling me that, she was laughing when she finished the story and she said it was one of her happiest memories." Claire turned to look at Jimmy. "Imagine that Jimmy, imagine if one of your fondest memories was of chewing sand... I wish she had told me why." She turned back to the window and the tears came again. She watched them in the reflection, they rolled silently down her cheeks as if they, and indeed her own face, belonged to someone else + +The streetlights gave way to the dusty darkness of a gravel road, they were enveloped in a dusty cloud, Claire rolled down the window and stuck her head outside, tongue extended laughing and crying at the same time, the wind whipped her tears off her cheeks and carried them out into the parched desert night. The dust and sand stung her cheeks and filled her eyes. She ducked back inside the car coughing and spitting. "Crazy woman," she muttered. + +The bar was packed and sweltering, sticky bodies thronged together, scrunched shoulders and craning necks, trickles of sweat were visible on necks and earlobes as Claire struggled through the crowd trying to follow Jimmy toward the back of the room. Amid little grunts of pain, whispers of apology and finally a margin of cool air from the back door. Jimmy broke through, dragging Claire behind him to fall into a booth next to a half drunk and grinning version of Sil, animated like a cartoon in the dim light of the booth. "Jimmy! Just the man I was looking for, starter died this morning I had to kick start the beast to get here this afternoon..." His voice trailed off as he studied Claire's dusty face, "What happened to you?" Claire groaned and let her purse drop from her shoulder to the cushion beside her. "I was trying to chew sand." She laughed and took the beer that Sil held out to her. He shrugged but said nothing. Sil was probably the only person she knew who never insisted on sussing out some greater explanation, or at least if he ever did so he kept it to himself. She laid her head on his shoulder. He and jimmy begin to talk of motorcycles. Claire listened half heartedly, wishing that the music would begin. It wasn't that she minded so much the talk of carburetors and fuel pumps, she even had a motorcycle herself, a gift from Sil and Jimmy who decided that anyone crazy enough to catapult themselves into the psychedelic realm of elves and aliens ought to have no trouble riding a motorcycle. And the truth was she enjoyed it, she even enjoyed fixing it since between the two of them they seemed able to scrap together only enough money to by some late seventies vintage machine that had hitherto been resting in some junkyard the two of them frequented when they went scrounging for parts. All things considered she would have welcomed a distracting conversation, but she didn't want to talk about bikes, she didn't want to talk about anything that wouldn't matter tomorrow. Beside which it was February and only Sil was insane enough to ride his motorcycle in the freezing cold nights of February in Tucson anyway. She threaded her arm around Sil's working her elbom into the warmth of his belly and thought about his curious, impervious detachment to temperature. She recalled once staying over at his house and watching him step out for a cigarette barefoot in the snow. Claire had once witnessed him dip his fingers in boiling water to retrieve a bobbing potato with apparently no pain whatsoever, just an embarrassed blush when he caught her staring, mouth agape. + +Somewhere on the far side of the throng that was now backed all the way up to their both such that a row of shapely asses and thighs threatened to impinge on their drinks, a saxophone began to tune, squelching suggestively and then the kick drums thumped once or twice and the show started suddenly out of the chaos of tuning a half disernable melody began to emerge. Claire released Sil and climbed up on the back of the booth, spine arched and craned her neck trying to see over the crowd. All the shoulders and stooped backs turned just so, perfectly aligning the emptiness between Claire and the stage so that her eyes met those of the dancer onstage and cannot avoid but meet them again. A writhing serpentine figure that that spiraled around the man with the metal chest, or rather with the metal attached to his chest. To his face. To his lips. It sounded like Paleolithic cave drawings -- dueling sculptors chipping at the same stone, part horrific cacophony, and part terrifying clarity. The dancer fell to the floor of the stage and then began to rise in slow circling motions, spinning as if to slow the motion of the earth to rob it of some spped that would cause everyone in the room to suddenly sieze upon this moment as fragmentory, fleeting, but not yet gone, to sieze it and hold it and never let go. The trio had been in town for three weeks now, a long pause on a journey into something only dust and angels were really fully aware of, pausing here to pack out the Rattle Bar and Grill which had not seen the likes of such talent in all it's barren days and for which the owner, proprietor and occasional bartender Sil Hawkard had been paying handsomely. And he made sure to ply Claire with plenty of free beverages to entertain and enlarge the ever flexible nature of perception such that a certain dancer of curiously indecipherable ethnic origins who had tendencies toward the affections fay, cherry-haired young women might continue to take residence in the dilapidated guesthouse behind the bar over the increasingly vocal grumblings of the saxophonist and the drummer who understandably did not see a future for avant garde jazz in Tucson Arizona. + +Later the patrons couple off in a haze of alcohol and dust from taxis circling in the drive, and the night began to take on a bruised character, like a drunk beginning to sober in a cold lonely jail cell. + +Claire excused herself to the bathroom. Jimmy sat up straight and eyed Sil out of the corner of his eye, "You going to the funeral tomorrow?" + +Sil nodded and sat silent for a moment as if weighing out the words that both of them knew would be next. "She wanted to tell you Jimmy," He spoke slowly and stared at his empty glass, fiddling with it. "I think she just feels strange because you're there, in the room." He looked up at Jimmy. "She thinks you know things about her that she doesn't know." + +"I do." Jimmy spoke matter-of-factly as if it were a thing of no importance. + +"Well, I'm just saying, don't take it personally if she doesn't tell you things sometimes, she's just protecting herself." + +"You make it sound like we're lovers Sil." + +"What the hell does that have to do with it? If you were lovers she'd have told you already, it's always your friends that really hurt you." Sil smiled ironically. + +Jimmy pulled a cigarette out of the pack on the table but didn't light it. "This afternoon she became her grandmother." + +Sil's head snapped up to meet Jimmy's gaze, "What do you mean 'became'?" + +"It happens quite a bit, she becomes other people, sometimes her family members, sometimes distant relatives I'm pretty sure she never even knew... + +"Are you going to tell her?" + +"I can't Sil." + +"Fuck what Waiben wants Jimmy, the whole fucking thing is going o get shut down anyway as soon as he publishes this stuff, probably even sooner. He's already skating on thin ice at with the University, once they find out that he's convinced DMT gives you access to spirit worlds or whatever shit he seems convinced it does, he's fucking finished. The scientific element'll finally go out the window and he'll pick up and move on in some other fucking direction. That's what he always does. The man is batshit crazy..." + +Claire sat back down next to Jimmy and suddenly glared at Sil. "He is not." + +"Claire I've known him longer than you, trust me he's batshit crazy. For the most part in a good way, but you just never know... I've always avoided delving too deep into his craziness. Frankly there's no way of telling what's down there at the bottom. I mean do you know anyone else who's fallen out of an airplane and lived?" + +"He didn't fall, he jumped." + +"I rest my case -- bat shit crazy." Sil slumped back and swirled the drink. "Jasmine my dear, when you get a sec I need a splash." The girl behind the bar nodded but didn't stop rinsing glasses and stacking them on the shelf behind her. + +Claire continued to glared at Sil, but on the other hand she did half believe him. Waiben, or Scratch as Sil called him -- for reasons no one seemed to be aware of save Sil -- was, at the very least, eccentric. Claire desperately wanted to ask Sil more about Waiben, but had always refused to out of pride. She knew Waiben was Sil had worked together for years, but then he had just left. Dropped the whole thing without so much as a phone call. Bought the bar and hadn't, so far as she knew, spoken to Waiben since. Neither Claire nor anyone else had ever induced either Sil or Waiben to elucidate on the situation, though neither spoke ill of the other, provided bat-shit crazy was not considered ill. + +"You look like you're going to skin me alive," Sil met her definate gaze with what he undoubtedly considered a warm, open sort of smile but which Claire found somehow intruding, as if he were listening to her thoughts. + +"Naw. Market's dropped out in pelts." She took a last drag from her bottle of beer and faked a smile back at him. + +Jimmy had become sullen and quiet. He popped a handful of peanuts in his mouth and slid out of the booth. "Time for me to go I guess, you coming Claire?" + +"Naw, I'll stay a bit." + +"Okay. I'll see ya'll tomorrow." Jimmy walked over shook hands with the bartender and wandered out the front door. Sil and Claire watched him go. + +"You finally told him?" + +"Did he say something to you?" + +"He asked if I was going." + +"Oh." She felt a sicking pit open up in her stomach. "Can I stay with you tonight?" + +"You'll have to ride on the bike..." + +Sil fell asleep the minute he took off his clothes and sunk onto the bed. Claire ran the water, filling the bathtub. She slowly peeled off her clothing and stared at her body in the mirror. Her hair was stringy and dry, her face rimmed in a thin layer of dust. She sighed and walked back into the bedroom to retrieve a candle. She lit the candle and turned off the bathroom light. She turned off the water and sank slowly into the tub. The water enveloped her like an electric blank on a midwest morning, she lowered her body further into the water and slowly let her head go under. Her hair floated up and clung to the surface as the watery silence filled her ears and the rhythm of her own heart filled her ears. + +She remembered the last time she had seen her grandmother. They were sitting at the kitchen table the yellow flowered curtains puffed with the first cool breeze of fall. Her grandmother asked Claire for a cigarette. Claire protested at first but her grandmother said it didn't matter anymore, she might as well enjoy what was left. Claire ended up giving her a cigarette and fished out another for herself. Her grandmother struck a match and held it up for Claire who had leaned in to light, meeting her grandmother's eyes as she did, struck at once that though the skin of her face was loose and drawn, her eyes had the same liquid brightness of a baby, the seemed to crackle with life in spite of the dying that surrounded them. Claire sat back in her chair and studied her grandmother's face as she smoked, wondering what how it looked, young and smooth, before eighty years spent in and out of the desert sun. + +Claire remembered thinking that to some people the desert was a hot wind at the gas station, something passing through and to be passed through. Others saw a sunny retreat from cold wind billowing off northern lakes; some saw it as an endless playground of sunshine, golf and hotel pools. Her grandmother simply arrived in it one day, accepted it and tried to swallow it, literally Claire realized now. + +"It used to be so beautiful here in the fall," her grandmother was staring out the back door toward the mountains. "Those hills where covered with junipers and in the gullies there were enormous Sycamores and Cottonwoods that turned yellow and orange..." + +Claire looked up at the hills now covered in houses. She remembered dimly, as a girl, walking in the canyons with her grandmother and grandfather, gathering leaves and looking for wizards and fairies in the shaded glades of trees, the cool moist air near the water, the dry crunch of leaves under her young feet. + +"It still is beautiful, though," Her grandmother turned in her chair and flicked a bit of ash into the kitchen sink. "Claire." She stopped as if gathering something up within her, "I'm dying." + +Claire lifted her head out of the rub and drew her legs up, tucking her feet under her and wrapping her arms around her knees. + +What is age made of, what shape does death take as it drew nearer? Perhaps it takes no clearer shape, perhaps death remains forever a stranger, perhaps it's life that has sharper shape when death approaches. If life begins in pleasure and ends in pain is it therefore necessarily futile? Is it just an expansive joke, me being the product of endless strangers' pleasure, rooted in their bellies and born through their legs only to end in pain? And what? Along the way move to feel my own pleasure and bear out strangers of my own, slowly plodding toward the pain? She thought of Aldus Huxley and his anesthetized, hallucinatory suicide. Was that cheating? Was the pain necessary? Was it still possible to die with grace, naturally, without the infest of disease, that latter day stranger come to roost itself like so many passenger pigeons returned home? She thought of her grandmother's pain, swept up in the rising river, the boulders, she wondered if it had lasted, if it had passed quickly or never existed at all. She wondered what her grandmother had thought of, sitting there beside the river, soaked through by the rain, watching the water rise, the distant rumble of boulders beginning to move, the faint white noise of the coming flood... and then... what? Claire leaned her head on her knees and watched the candle flickering. She remembered her grandmother's eyes the moist vitality in them, the tiny universes of memory floating in a saline ether with faint but visible stars beginning to glow behind them. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +"It was a lovely service doncha think?" + +Claire felt a little vomit start to migrate up her throat, but she just smiled at her aunt and nodded. Claire hadn't been at the funeral. True, her body had stood between Sil and her Aunt, but she never heard the words and just watched dumbly as everyone dropped a handful of dirt down a whole that contained some shattered remnants of her grandmother that the fire department had managed to salvage from the river a full twnety two miles from the canyon where her car was parked. Claire had spent most of the brief cemermony watching the traffic on N. Oracle speeding along as usual. Afterward everyone retreated back to their cars and as Jimmy drove them toward the foothills for the reception at her Aunt's house Claire watched a group of hotair balloons begin to slowly lift off from the small airfield on the outskirts of town. She did her time making rounds taking in condolances from well-meaning family members she knew would drive home commenting on the tattoo on her wrist, the small diamond stud in her nose, the unkept wildness of her hair, the fact that she had not one, but two men with her, the fact that she hadn't been to church since the eighth grade when James Becker tried to rape her bdhind the chapel and she broke his nose with a brick, the later detail seemingly the ony one anyone cared to remember, she smiled but she sould see the clucking disapproaval in her both of her aunts and the slightly creepy leering grin of their husbands, one of whom had tried to kiss her at his own wedding three years ago. + +As always Claire used cigarettes to escape her family. She slipped outside at the earliest possible moment and sat down on the patio table to watch her young cousin. He marched up to her a plfastic fireman's hat wildly cockeyed on his head and strangely out of place with the suit he still had on. "How are you Darren?" + +He shrugged and looked at her shyly. "You have a picture on your arm." + +"Yes I do Darren. It's called a tattoo, it's ink embedded... + +"What's it a picture of?" + +Claire pulled up her sleeve so he could see the whole tattoo. "It's all the signs of the Zodiac in a circle... When were you born Darren? March?" + +He nodded but kept staring at her arm. "This is your symbol right here." She pointed to Aries, which he leaned in to scrutinize closer. "You're an Aries. That means your symbol is the the Bull. Very strong." + +He seemed please by this notion and Claire neglected to add that he would very likely grow up constantly falling in and out of love with a string of trailor park ex-wives spreading in his wake. + +"Which one are you?" + +"I'm Sagitarious, this on here, the little hook like symbol." + +"Why do you have a tattoo?" + +She smiled. I got drunk once and it seemed like a good idea was Claire reasoned, not the appropriate response to give a five year old, but somehow she had never come up with better one. "Why do you have a nose?" + +He laughed, "I dunno, everyone has a nose... do I have a tattoo?" + +She giggled and raised his shirt and begin to tickle him, "I don't know let's see..." + +He squealed and ran away, circling back around, but staying just out of arms reach. "I don't have a tattoo," he said finally. + +"No you don't. But you can get one some day if you want." Claire tried to picture her Aunt's face when Darren would relay this bit of information. + +"Are you on drugs?" + +"What?" Claire snapped around and grabbed him by the arm. "Who told you that?" + +"No one. I just heard my mommy say it to daddy this morning." + +"Oh she did did she? Claire sat back in the chair and pulled Darren up on her lap and wrapped her arms around him. "And what else did your mommy say this morning?" + +"About you? I think she said "You're anxious." + +"Do you even know what anxious means?" + +"Momma said you're anxious cause you want to know bout the hertiance." + +"How old are you Darren?" + +"I'll be six soon." + +"And your mother told you I was nervous about an inheritance..." + +"No she said anxious." + +"Right. Anxious. Because..." + +"Because you won't be getting any money." + +Darren's mother was looking out at Claire from behind the sliding glass door, she waved from behind the glass, comfortable in her air conditioned cocoon; Claire smiled and waved back stifling the urge to mouth bitch at her. Her aunt openned the door and beckoned Darren inside. He climbed off of Claire and wandered toward the door. Claire took another sip of the cheap boxed chardonney she had poured earlier, it tasted a bit like peach juice, but it was slowly having the desired effect. She stood up and wandered through the yard and out into the river gully running just beyond the back fence. There was a trail leading down in the general direction of the river and Claire followed it walking slowly and keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes and scorpions. A breeze had begun almost as soon as the sun sunk behind the Catalina Mountains, not strong enough to bend the stiff twiggy branches of desert trees, it moved though in whispers, puffs of air brushing against her cheek. She thought of airports, hospitals, departure points, the shuffling of human feet moving in and out of rooms like last quiet sighs of breath. Claire watched the river and wondered vaguely what its name actually meant. It seemed odd to her that she had lived next to or around the Rialto River for so many years without ever wondering what the word meant. She felt as if she were herself a desert only recently become aware that someone had flung a river down on her. Or with desert ambivalence she had always had a river running around her but had simply never noticed it. What then does the desert make of the river? As she studied the scene that was cascading down the slope and away from the organization of the manicured patio and yard, she decided that the desert seemed to ignore the river entirely. The river was starting to flood again, somewhere far upstream three days rain had been feeding until it swelled like a Christmas ham, but ten yards on either side and it was sand again. Stagnant pink sand interspersed with prickly plants and clumps of sagebrush and Mesquite trees, ironwood her grandfather called it. The sand didn't care for the water, didn't hold onto it, didn't even try, just let the water flow right on over it, puddle and collect, run off and feed into the river. Farther in the distance there were the mountains ringing the desert, keeping watch over it, making sure it behaved in some general way. + +She could see a figure emerge from the house and begin to slowly pick its way through the cacti and palo verde up the sloop toward the rock where Claire sit. It wasn't until he was halfway to her that she recognized Jimmy. He climbed up on the rock, but didn't say anything. + +She leaved her head on his shoulder. "Can I ask you a question Jimmy? It's a stupid question, but I read it in a magazine yesterday and I can't stop thinking about." + +"Shoot." + +"If you were going to do something for the sole purpose of getting in the Guiness book of world records what would it be?" + +Jimmy laughed. "That's easy. Land speed record. currently held by my uncle who drove a rocket powered car at 457 mph across a dry lake in Nevada." + +"Seriously? I mean your uncle is really in the Guiness Book of world records?" + +"Seriously." + +"Huh." + +"And you?" + +"I would skydive from the stratosphere like that guy did a couple years ago, only, obviously, I'd have to start higher." + +"Yes you would. Did you go through an astronaut phase when you were younger?" + +"Not really. Maybe. I don't remember." She took out another cigarette and lit it. Jimmy snagged it from her lips and took a drag. She watched him awkwardly puff out the smoke. "You know what I read once? The first thing an astronaut said the first time he orbited the moon... He said 'well, it's pretty gray.' It's pretty gray, Jimmy. It's pretty fucking gray. This asshole is the first fucking human to see the moon close up, to orbit around it in it's own gravity and he says it's pretty fucking gray. Fuck him." + +"He had an impoverished imagination." + +Her head snapped up from where it had been resting on her knee. "Life is a collision of imagination and observation, Jimmy, and he fucking failed." + +"Maybe." + +"No Jimmy. He failed. He was one of about thirty people that have seen the moon up close and all he got out of it was that it's gray. He fucking failed." + +"You're assuming that gray meant nothing to him, but what if his mother had gray eyes and that was the one memory that came back to him when he was overwhelmed by being that close to the moon?" + +She rested her cheek on her knee again and rocked back and forth for a minute before speaking. "You're sweet Jimmy. You always defend people and want to think the best about them. I love you for that. In spite of the fact that deep down you're cynical too. But you try and that's what I love about you." + +Neither of them said anything for a while. The watched the balloons drift slowly across the sky. + +"Are you okay?" he asked finally. + +"I think so. I mean she basically told me she was going to do it. I did my crying a few days ago, now..." She stopped. "I can't cry around them for some reason." + +"Yeah." + +"You know I once cried so hard I swallowed a moth." She giggled. "I was supposed to go out with this guy. This was junior high. Maybe high school. No junior high. Anyway we were supposed to ride our bikes to the park in the evening and he never showed up and I waited and waited. I was so in love with this guy. So at about 10 o'clock I'm out on the porch-sobbing... You know those huffing snorting kind of sobs that women make when they're really upset? Hyperventilating sobs... anyway, I was chewing gum. I always used to chew gum. So I'm in the rocking chair sobbing, arms around my knees... this is so pathetic... I inhaled a moth somehow and before I realized it I chewed him right into my gum. It was crackly at first, but then more like chewing feathers. I remember running in to tell my grandmoter I had eaten a moth... I can't believe she didn't laugh at me." Claire smiled and looked a Jimmy's brown eyes shielded from the sun by a red socks hat. "I had a lot of disturbing, uh, incidents in childhood. I used to kidnap cats when I was little." + +"Kidnap cats?" + +"Gamma wouldn't let me have a cat. She actually told me years later that she she didn't want the cat because she didn't want to become an old lady with cats. I mean after the plane went down... I dunno. She could occasionaly be quite vain. I think she felt awkward raising me at her age." Claire stopped. Jimmy could feel her body shudder against his. He pictured her face distorting, trying to swallow back tears like she had the night before. + +"Anyway," She sniffed and drew herself up laughing softly. "I would go out and steal them from neighbors... At first I just petted them you know. Then I got one to follow me home. I felt like he loved me more than his owners and I cried when Gamma took him home. I was probably seven or eight when this happened. After that I went farther from home, several blocks away where I knew Gamma wouldn't know whose cat it was and I would have to post signs, found: cat. That sort of thing so, you know, I would have the cat for longer." + +"Right." + +"But these cats wouldn't follow me home. Too far I guess. So I would save my lunch money and on the way home from school I'd stop at Circle K and buy myself a slushy and Moon Pie and can of cat food. Then I'd ride my bike past my house, way back into the subdivision and lure cats home by dragging the cat food on a string behind my bike. One time I pulled into my driveway with three cats running behind me." + +"You were a cat rustler." This drew a laugh. + +"Yeah. I guess I was. One time, after I posted a bunch of found cat signs and stuff this old lady came to our house to pick up her cat and she was so excited that I had found her cat she gave me twenty dollars -- which was a lot of money at that age -- and bells went off in my head. So then I started kidnapping the cats for profit. I mean, when I could. I tried to pick cats that looked pampered or that were sitting in front of old lady houses. You know lots of papers collecting on the porch. Beat up seventies sedans. Maybe that was me subconsciously realizing my grandmother's fears or something. Anyway I was pretty good at casing a block and finding the old lady cats. When they would come over I'd put on a cute little dress and smile and play dumb and they would give me a reward. One month I made $200. That's when my Gamma caught on." + +"What'd she do?" + +"Bought me a cat." + +"Smart." + +"Yeah, but by then I didn't want one." They sat in silence again. The balloons were higher now. AT some length Claire collapsed onto Jimmy's shoulder and sighed deeply sliding down so that her head was on his chest. "My family thinks I'm on drugs." + +"Of course you're on drugs, you have a tattoo." Jimmy smiled at her and she through her arms around him suddenly punching him softly in the back. "What? your aunt already grilled Sil and I about it. Plus Claire, you do take drugs twice a week." + +"That's different. And besides my aunt's been popping Somas since her car accident, that was two fucking years ago and she still acts like it's no big deal, but get a tattoo... Jesus. You know her own mother couldn't stand her?" + +"I'm sure that's not true..." + +"Wait until the executor reads the will... Oh and that's another thing, they're all gonna hate me... Gamma gave me everything, I asked her not to, I even threated to give it all to my aunt if she did, but she said it was for me." + +"So you have a house now and everything?" + +"I guess so, yeah. I don't want it though, I can't live there without her. It would be weird. Wrong. Why do I need it? I already have everything from my parents..." She turned on her back and let her head rest in his lap. She looked up at him; his eyes were shadowed by a Red Sox hat that Sil had given him. His lips were red and seemed suddenly incredably close. She drew in a breathe, closed her eyes and slowly lifting her head until her own lips pressed against his softly. + +When they returned to the house Sil was in the backyard engaged in some sort of complex war-like game of super soaker mayhem with Darren. Sil stood in the middle of the yard with a super soaker in each hand looking not unlike the cover of Rambo firing dual streams of water at Darren who also had two super soakers, but was crouched behind a cactus biding his time. When Sil's streams fell short darren was up in a nearly identical fashion, hosing Sil down. Sil made no effort to dodge out of the way instead he resolutely pumped the super soakers building the pressure back up. Claire noted from the look of Sil's suit this had been going on for some time. She and Jimmy stepped through the gate just as Sil rose up, super soakers recharged. He half turned and faced both barrels toward them, a wicked grin crosed his face. She and jimmy both froze. "Don't even think about Sil," Claire warned. "I will not be laighing." + +"This is Armani man," Jimmy added. + +"Okay. Darren, the war is over, you win." Sil walked over to the table and laid down the guns. Darren tore about the yard in circles, "I win! I win I win I win!" + +Sil stripped off his jacket and wrung it dry. "Not Armani," he said drily. He fished a pack of cigarette out of the coat pocket and lit one. "So Claire... Do you know a friend of your grandmother's named Ambrose?" + +"No." + +"Hmmph. Neither does anybody else here. Well. When we were leaving the cemetery, this man came up to me, greeted me by name and asked me to give you this." Sil produced a slightly soggy business card and handed it to Claire. + +She looked down at the tattered peice of paper. "There was a finely drawn image of two fingers about to grasp the tail of a dragonfly. To the left of the drawing was a partially smeared scrawl of handwriting that read: "Call me." Claire turned the card over and read a local number. "Did he say what this was about?" + +Sil took a drag and eyed her suspiciously, she blushed slightly under his gaze. "No. He just said he was an old friend of your grandmother's and that he wanted you to get in touch with him as soon as possible." Sil sat down in a patio chair. "At the time I didn't think much of it, but then when I was inside talking to your aunt about it... the fat one, what's her name again?" + +"Debbi." + +"Right, Debbi. Anyway I was asking her if she knew if your grandmother had any friends by that name and it suddenly occurred to me that he had greeted me by name. Granted a lot of people know my name from the bar, but I didn't recognize this guy and all the sudden it creeped me out. I dunno, maybe he just overheard someone else say my name or something... he was at the funeral. He stood in the back opposite us. I vaguely remember him. Probably he just heard you call my name... Anyway, I relayed the message. My work here is done." + +"Yeah. Thanks." Claire stuffed the card in her pocket and went inside. Jimmy sat down next to Sil and bummed a drag. + +"So." + +"So." + +"Oh fuck off man. I was out here chasing that little monster with super soakers for the last half hour. That hill might seem like it's far away, but it isn't." + +"What do you want me to say?" + +"That it wasn't what it looked like." + +"What if it was?" + +"Then you need to pay your tab." + +"What?" + +"Your tab at the bar. Pay it." + +"Fuck you Sil. It wasn't me." + +"Funny. It sure looked like you." + +"Whatever man. It could just as easily have been you if you'd wandered up there." + +"Mmhmm. But I didn't." + +"And so what? no one else can either?" + +"What happened to objectivity?" + +"Is that what this is about?" + +"No." + +"Well." + +"All right. Sorry. It's none of my business." + +"Then why..." + +"Forget it." + +"She'll go home with you anyway." + +Sil sniffed sarcastically. + +The glass door slid open and Claire emerged with another drink in hand. "What are you talking about?" + +"Jimmy's love life," Sil chuckled. + +"Oh." Claire turned crimson and sat down next to Sil. + +"So he told you?" + +"Told me what?" Sil asked cautiously. + +Claire looked back and forth at them suspiciously. She sighed. "Jimmy's heart belongs to an online porn star." Claire collapsed in giggles which she tried to contain in the harsh glare of Jimmy's scowl. + +"She is not a porn star. And she has a name." It was Jimmy's turn to blush. + +"Oh yes, her name Sil, is Haley Wilde -- wild with an e mind you," Chloe giggled again momentarily. "So tell us Jimmy," Claire straightened her back with an audible popping noise, "does she or does she not earn a living by video taping herself having sex and then posting those videos on web?" + +"She does, but she only has sex with her boyfriend..." + +"Whom she claims to be much in love with..." + +'...and other girls." + +"And other girls" + +Sil's eyebrows shot up his forehead accenting the fact that a good half inch of the left one was missing, "wait, you're in love with a lesbian who loves her boyfriend?" + +"Yeah." + +"Shit." + +"Shit is right." Chloe drained her glass and looked at Jimmy cockeyed. "Jimmy you're an idiot and I mean that in the best way possible." She reached over and grabbed Sil's drink. "Oh and the best part is she has a tattoo of dolphin where her pubes should be." + +"Lasers. Problem solved." Jimmy waved his hand. + +"You're better off learning to love it." Sil snatched his glass back from Claire and in spite of it's obvious emptiness, tipped it toward his mouth. + +"I kind of already have," Jimmy smiled sheepishly. + +Night drew up like the pony express, expected on time. Claire's relatives slowly trickled out the sliding glass door to reiterate their condolances and drive back to their lives, clucking along the way. As Jimmy predicted, Claire got out of the car at Sil's house. Sil stood in the drive watching the Falcon disappear in a cloud of dust down River road. Claire had already gone inside. Sil walked up to the porch and sat down in the dilapidated rocking chair left behind by the previous tenant. After a while Claire's head poked out the door and she informed him that she was taking a shower and going to bed. He nodded. The bats were darting across the glowing, city-lit horizen. He heard the water running. Sil stood and walked in to the kitchen to retreive a bottle of Stags Leap Petite Syrah he had been saving for some time. He returned to the parch and sat down with the corkscrew. He popped the cork and took a draw from the bottle. + +After a while Claire came outside wrapped in Sil's robe. She sat down on his lap and picked up the bottle. She tilted her head back and let the wine run freely down her throat. Sil watched her face. She set the bottle back down on the porch. + +"Was Jimmy serious about that girl?" + +"What? The porn star? Yeah pretty serious. He made me watch a few videos and asked what I thought. It was weird, like when you meet someone's new girlfriend only this was just a girl on a screen talking dirty, but not really dirty, more like cutsy dirty. And touching herself. It faded out as she was licking her fingers." + +"Hmm." Sil shrugged. "Does she seem like a good person?" + +"Well... I must admit there is something about her... I mean I haven't seen a lot of pornography, but she doesn't strike me as someone cut out for it, which probably means she's a decent person. And she's goregous. But I mean, she's trying to internet sex star and she already has a boyfriend -- can you really be in love with someone that unattainable?" + +"Love doesn't seem to abide hopelessness." Sil reached down and started to take a pull from the bottle of wine, but Claire stopped him and pulled the bottle from his hands. She cupped bother her hands around Sil's stubble covered cheeks. She held his face like that for a moment and then shifted her wieght on his legs and let go of his face. He reached down and picked up the bottle again. She sighed. "I'm sorry Sil. I don't know why I kissed him..." + +"How did..." + +"Sil. You don't exactly have a poker face. Well, actually your face is pretty good, but your eyes give you away." She lay back against him and nuzzled her head under his chin. "It doesn't matter... his lips were just there... I needed to feel them, to feel something..." Her voice trailed off into the stoic stillness of the desert night. They watched a small lightning storm on the horizen, thin little bolts zig-zaged down into the sodium glow of the city. Sil thought about something his uncle had once said about lightning being six times hotter than the surface of the sun and yet generally less than three-eights of an inch thick. + +Later Claire stood up and lightly kissed his cheek, lingering for a moment to feel the roughness of his beard against her own skin. And then she stood and disappeared inside. After a while Sil rose drunkenly from the chair and stretched his back. He leaned down to grab the bottle of wine and stumbled toward the grassy desert unzipping his fly as he walked. Leaning his head back to swig from the bottle he paused to stare at the particles of starlight sneaking through the bruised clouds. He began to piss on the grassy desert sand, thinking that you adjust your breath to the one who breathes beside you. You lie very close, still and alone. + + + + + + * * * * * + + + + + +Sil was up with the sun fumbling in the half dark kitchen trying to find a grinder to go with the coffee beans already measured out in a cup sitting on the counter. He recalled with some amusement the apartment in Boston that he and Waiben had shared for four years, something his girlfriend as the time has considered exceedingly strange, "he's like what, sixty?" she used to say and then nothing more until Sil would correct her, "sixty-two actually." Sil used to wake up to Waiben singing "you got to get behind the mule every morning and plow" while he hunted around the kitchen for coffee beans. At that time they still had the old icebox that Waiben had found on the side of the road and patched up. Since it did the job neither of them thought to replace it for the better part of a year. When Waiben drank too much and passed out before sundown, he'd forget to restock the ice. The melted remnants of the previous day's block of ice would eventually force open the door and the contents of the icebox, including the bag of coffee would go crashing to the kitchen floor, skittering about on the icy water until they found their way into all kinds of strange places. "You got to get behind the mule every morning and plow" Waiben would sing while he slowly gathered everything up and restocked the icebox. When he invariably found the coffee lying in the farthest crack, he would squat down and scoot it along the floor over to the table, laughing and singing "...every morning and plow...every morning and plow..." Once Sil had crept up quietly to watch and he witnessed Waiben do a little dance, all crooked and insane owing to a bad knee that made his dancing hover between pathetic and comical. He would start gyrating at the waist, flopping his arms about while he sang. That first morning when Sil saw him do it, he momentarily thought Waiben was having a seizure the way he convulsed wildly about. Later Sil found out the line was a Tom Waits' lyric. + +Sil shivered as the grinder spun and he lit a cigarette waiting for the kettle to boil. He stepped gingerly across the freezing floor to stand by the open flame of the the stove. He glanced back toward the bedroom where he could see Claire sleeping. A ray of sunlight shot through the uncovered window to the right of the bed and the light slowly expanded, covering first the table and then worked it's way toward the white sheets where Claire lay. Her face was obscured in a swirl of coppery hair that spread out over her back and onto the pillow next to her, but her back was exposed and revealed her ivory skin marked here and there by the lines of pale brown, evidence of a spaghetti strap top worn in the sun, perhaps a bathing suit worn by the pool, the cholrine smell of summer suddenly washed over him and he was lost contemplating the linguistic transition from bathing costume to bathing suit until she stirred slightly in the bed and sheet moved to reveal the preternatually bright ink of the tattoo on Claire's lower back. The color of water and Lotus leaped up out of the white sheet as if heliotropically seeking the nearby patch of sun. Claire shifted again arching over and the tattoo moved into the sunlight. Sil momentarily closed his eyes and bit down on his already tightly clenched fist until it hurt far more than he had intended and the desire to leap on the bed and somehow dissolve himself over her somehow like a liquid banket of skin until he sunk into her, obliterating himself in the process like a stream ducking into the mouth of a cave bound for underground and never to return, had passed. Eventually he retreated back to the kitchen lest he act on impulse, though he was dimly aware that he wasn't so much restraining himself as merely postponing the inevitable with the vague promise of the indefinite. + +Coffee in hand he swung open the front door and stepped gingerly out onto what had once been the porch, but now served mainly as a means to inject splinters in his cold bare feet. The truth was Sil wasn't impervious to pain, he simply ignored it. He stepped slowly over the brittle gray wood and out into the sandy yard. He lit another cigarette and stretched his back in the sunlight. He turned and looked back at the house. The roof was rotten from termites and an extended family of rats lived in the ceiling panels. The walls were paper-thin, insulated with spider webs and the only heat came from the anceint pot bellied stove that spit sparks on his living room floor every time he opened it. He sat down in the middle of the desert driveway and watched a plume of dust forming in the distance, near the highway. That would be Jimmy he decided. The only thing that brought anyone out to this godforsaken stretch of land was necessity or occasionally the desire for something that could not be eaily obtained elsewhere. Sil sipped his coffee and waited. Eventually Claire emerged from the house behind him, coffee in hand and speaking in a slightly higher than normal pitched morning voice that drove Sil to parodoxical spasms of lust and tenderness. Before he could achieve the sort of niranic state he felt the voice would one day lead him to, the phone rang. Sil continued to sip his coffee but stepped inside to listen to the machine when it picked up. A crackling voice hestitated and then begin to ask for Claire. Curious Sil walked in and picked up. The man from the cemetery greeted him once more by name and asked for Claire. Sil hesitated but leaned out the front door and handed her the phone. He wandered off to the kitchen and began making breakfast. Claire came in just as Sil slid the eggs out of the pan onto the black beans and tortilla's already piled on two plates. "Everything okay?" + +"That man. The man you met yesterday... he wanted to know about Gamma's things..." She stared out the kitchen window at the clouds, thinking about the man's voice, something in it seemed to ooze and flow like sap or the sludge at the bottom of a cup of Turkish coffee, lavish with timbre and an opacity that reminded her curiously of the way her own voice sometimes sounded when she first made the leap into the hyperreality of DMT, as if he were speaking not with his toungue and lips, not even with his throught or diaphram but from someplace much further down, someplace anchored in rock and mode of words, as if he were caling them up. Aware suddenly of how long she had fallen silent she watched Sil carry the plate over to the table where she sat and tried to make her voice sound commonplace, "and then I dunno, he wanted to know if it would be alright to come by my grandmother's house and look for some book." + +"How does he know your grandmother again?" Sil sat down and began eating. + +"He said he knew her when she was a girl, but he didn't really elaborate." + +"So did you say he could come by?" + +"Yeah, but I didn't say when. He said he'd call next week. He's quite nice. I can't place his accent though." + +"Did he have an accent? I didn't notice." + +They ate and then Sil turned on the stereo and busied himself cleaning up the dishes. Claire lit a cigarette and stared out the sliding glass door at the desert. The clatter of dishes mixed with the music, violins and spoons, bass lines and sautee pans, snare drum and water mingling like sand paintings held together in precise stillness. The songs of time passing, the rattle of dishes wiped dry on the counter and laid up in mahagony cupboards, the green paint on the walls and French cafe poster over the shelf where Sil stacked his herbs. Claire had always admired Sil's house, which, in spite of being nearly abandoned in outward appearance, or perhaps because of its outward appearance seemed to her somehow ceremonial in its inner fasticidousness, which is not say that Sil was organized or neat by any means, but rather that everything felt as if it were exactly where it was supposed to be, regardless of where that might be, the dust on the bookshelves, the towel curled round the back of the sink to stop a leaky faucet, she tried and failed to imagine any of it changing. *Your grandmother had something that belongs to me, something I gave her a long time ago, but which I would like to have back.* The voice seemed to be in her own head she realized suddenly, that was what reminded her... it had the same quality of the voices that spoke inside her own head but which she was fully away where not "her," the only way she had ever been able to explain it to Jimmy was to compare it with an echo, your voice, but no longer in your possession, as if it were merely using you as a canyon in which to bound about like a child bouncing a ball off the walls of a corridor. + +Around noon Sil dropped Claire off at her grandmother's house. It wasn't until she stepped inside that the full force of it hit her, the air was stiffling, she felt as if her lungs were collapsing, a supernova of yellow kitchen walls, blue daisy curtains collapsing in on her, a bowl of rotten grapes on the counter, her stomach turned at the sunken orbs, already flakes of white mold spreading across them. She felt herself trying to suck in air and finding none, began to choke, a bit of bile in her mouth. The windows seemed to bend with caustic desert light, the glass warped and laughing at her. She felt herself gasping for air and retreated sobbing to the porch to where she spit out an orange gray bile and collapsed on the steps. "Once something dies you can't make it live," her grandmother was pulling out a dead basil plant accidentally left out and caught in a frost, it's gray wrinkled leaves made crisp crinkling sound against her skin. "It's the same with people Claire, once they're gone you can't get them back. Well, usually anyway." She chuckled lightly. Claire turned to look at her. "Everynow and then you might run across some people that do come back after they're gone the first time, but they're rare." + +Claire stopped crying and went back inside to get a tissue and blow her nose. Something about the mundanity of her mission perhaps, but this time the house felt neutral as if it no longer cared who came and went within it's walls. Claire stood at the kitchen window looking at the Sahorro cactus in the yard. She remembered planting it as a child, digging the hole with her shovel and how the man from the nursery helped them lower the small cactus in the hole, all of them gingerly avoiding the downward hooked thorns. In the twenty five years since the cactus has grown over six feet, but still somehow Claire felt, looked younger than her and she was sure would outlive her and then some. + +She avoided the closets, started in the bathroom where there was only one photograph, her great grandfather in an gilded oval frame. She studied it for a while thinking how strange to see someone she was directly descended from and yet might well have been an image in a textbook, so utter without connection or reference to her own life. He looked like a statue, something used a basis for fountain sculpter, his shoulders draw up sharply, the antiquated upright posing style of the day, trapped without color on a photographs stool, cursed to yellow with age. A small crack in the photograph had begun to peel and the left side of his face was cripped white and obscured. She spent the afternoon pitching lotions and powders in a trashbag, dried out, crusted Lancome bottles, Tylenon that had solidified to a single clump, hemroidal creme that she refused to touch without the aid of a tissue, Windex and Clorox, bottles of pills and medicines long expired, a deck of cards she kept, she shut her mind down and nothing produced any emotion save a frizzled and frayed toothbrush which should have been replaced months ago and Claire remembered saying as much to her grandmother and how she had simply shrugged. Claire sighed heavily and went outside for some air. + +It was well past dark by the time she went home. There were four garbage bags out front of the house, when Jimmy picked her up. They drove in silence and didn't say a word walking up Claire's steps. Inside the door she turned and they tore at each other's clothes. + + + + * * * * * + + + +It was the first warm day in ages when Sil rode down to the campus. He parked the bike outside the science library and as he walked over toward the administrative building he took in all the girls dressed prematurely in their summer clothes and tried to remember why it was he had dropped out of college so many years ago. He lingered outside the double door for a minute listening the Waiben's voice, trying to gauge the reaction before he opened them slowly and slipped in without a sound. He stood against the wall in the back and eyed the panel, three men and two women that sat majesterial at long table directly in front of Waiben who was talking about pyscology and the breakdown of the bicameral mind, the dislocation of the voice, the I from the position of external, the internalizing of the self and creation of the ego was an evolutionary necessity, but there is much that can be learned about consciousness by stepping backward..." Sil could tell the panel was unimpressed, the large man in the center who Sil thought would have looked more fitting in mutton chops, was pouring himself a glass of water. The woman on the end tapped her Parker on a legal pad and constantly pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her slender and apparently ineffective nose. Sil slipped out and waited in the hall. Waiben emerged with a clearly beaten look on his face. + +"Syris," Sil called out as he walked out into the desert warmth. + +"Sil. Was that you I heard come in?" + +"Yeah." + +"At least I can finish out the semester. I'm not going to, but I still get the money." + +"That's good. How have you been?" + +"I'm tired. And hungery, would you join me for lunch?" + +The walked across campus to a small diner that served breakfast all day and Waiben ordered an omlette. Sil watched him eat and sipped a warm beer. "Do you remember Von Hock at Cambridge?" + +"Was that the nut job that thought Yuri Gellar was visionary mystic?" + +No. That was Von Statler, you're confusing your Germans." They laughed. "Von Hock was the one that thought Alexandrian Library was actually saved and squirreled away in the vault in Venice or something." + +"Oh yeah. With the grad student..." + +"Corrinne. Yeah. She spoke seven languages, did you know that?" + +Waiben raised his eyebrows. "Well, I did hear she was quite talented with her tongue, but to be honest I didn't take it that way." + +"Very funny. No. She was brilliant." Sil seemed temporarily distracted. "But the reason I ask is that." He stopped to take a sip of beer. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. + +"You can't smoke in here." + +"No, you can't get caught smoking in here." Sil lit his cigarette holding it between his thumb and forefinger the rest of his hand curled over it. He took a drag and thrust his hand under the table. He exhaled down to his left and waved his hand to clear the smoke. "This is going to sound a bit crazy, which is why I'm telling you." + +Waiben noticed for the first time that Sil looked slightly different, exhausted perhaps. There were dark rings around his eyes, his cheeks looked slightly sunken like someone who hasn't slept in weeks; his hand shook slightly when he reached for his beer. Waiben watched him as he talked thinking of the day, several weeks past that he had taken off his headphone and stood up from his desk to retrieve a book from his shelf and he had heard grunting and moaning. Waiben had been in academic setting long enough to know that the best course of action was to put on his headphones and go back to work, but he'd also been in academic settings long enough to not need to do anything more than that. Sil knew he realized, had probably known a lot longer than Waiben given Sil's preternatural intuition. + +But as he listened to Sil's story he slowly began to doubt that his sleeplessness had anything to do with Claire, nor very likely did it have anything to do with anything altogether human. At some point a familar chill passed down his spine the likes of which he had not felt in years, probably since Paris. + +"You think it's him?" Waiben said finally. + +"Yes I do." + + * * * * * + + + + +It was summer. A dry scratchy heat hung around the porch where Claire sat sweaty and sipping a beer. + +The man wore a black suit that Claire immediately sensed was probably more expensive than the car sitting in her driveway. His face was partially obscured by noontime shadowes cast by the brim of an understated fedora, but when he smiled she could see perfectly straight, white teeth. + +"Claire?" + +"Yes." + +"It is a pleasure to meet finally." + +"It is?" + +"Your grandmother spoke of you constantly." + +" + + + + + + -------------- + +segue to end with the mention of the book and Ambrose's contact info he leaves. start Romanian section. + + +Sil runs into jazz musicians in NEw York at some point. + + + +leap backward in time to Sil and Waiben in Massachusetts. + + +Ambrose dangled hand over the edge of the boat until the river tickled the hairs on his wrist. He straightened the oar against his chest and shifted the hat over his eye to shade the afternoon sun. He closed his eyes and heard the lazy progression of guitar chords echoed by bass notes and strummed in time to asdkfj;k kl;asdfj klj, he could still picture her on the stage, the over-dramatic sweep on an arm, the singular wrechedness of the lines that echoed out of her mouth, the shockingly blond exotica of her hair that seemed to toss about her in the dim candlelit stage and the gruff hand on his shoulder jaring the whole vision to a close. + +From the shore he could hear the occasional bleet of sheep and coppling of horses hooves stamping the dusty road that paralleled the river. He though her riding in some expensive coach, footman atop next the driver waiting to dismount and open her door with a flourish and bow. + +He smiled and fell asleep. The boat continued to drift with the current justling occasionly against the sides of the river where overhanding limbs scratched at the his hat and the bow rebounded lightly off sunken rocks and gnarled watery roots entrapped by last year's flood. + +The noice of the city awoke him from the river dream far before he actually passed beneath the monolithic and slightly charred remains of the parliment building and the wakes of small steamers forced him to once again man the oars. took the lee side of the island keeping an eye out for his mother ont he bank but she appeared to have already left. He lay low against the gunwale peeking up a bit to see if his brothers had come in yet, but their boats were nowhere to be seen and he knew that his brothers had already gone with their father to the Bastich. To drink whisky on the square and wouldn't be home until late with the sounds of breaking glass and cursing coming out of the forested darkness as he had heard late at night all his life. + +He brought the boat downstream past the dock and then expertly dug one oar into the current as a fulcrum while windmilling the other to excute a nearly perfect circle on a dime. He then put his eight against both oars in the relative lee of the dock pausing only to cast the line to the man on the dock who caught it and pulled him the rest of the way in. + +At the Bastich Tavern he found his father and three brothers drunk in the corner he grabbed a mug at the bar and went to drain a bit from each over the surly cries of theif and good for nothing, which like the + + diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/present.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/present.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e69de29 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/present.txt diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/present_MetaData.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/present_MetaData.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..96fd528 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/present_MetaData.txt @@ -0,0 +1,18 @@ +Created: 22 January 2008, 22:25 +Modified: 31 July 2008, 22:40 +Status: N/A +Label: No Label +Keywords: + +Claire meets Sil +They go out to the bar that Dean owns. sex scene +cut experiment scene +death of her grandmother. +Scene with Dean at the funeral +Laslo shows up at Waiben's house +Sil leaves +lazlo visits Dean +Claire and Dean parting ways. +Claire and Waiben in bed +jump back to buda +Jump to Sil in new orleans
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/tucson 1.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/tucson 1.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d9d7cb6 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/tucson 1.txt @@ -0,0 +1,86 @@ +It was a cool spring evening, he had switched off the air before she arrived and opened the windows on either side of the bed. Faint strains of car horns downtown, children playing in the neighbor's yard, cicades like violins, the murmer of pigeons cooing in the raingutters outside above the window. The thin white curtains lufted lightly out in a puff of breeze and he watched, craning his head on the pillow as small gray-brown clumps of coalguated dust pushed off the ends of the fabric, out into the air like trapeze artists swinging from the rafters of a circus tent. He imagined them crawling out of the unused air vents poking out from the stained-pine baseboards, hiding around the bedposts, clinging in the wind. + +Is what we're doing worthwhile? She took a drag off the cigarette and let the smoke evaporate slowly out of her mouth. He watched it drift up toward the ceiling, a soul leaving a body. + +Waiben shifted his leg so that his foot rested on the bunched up comforter at the foot of the bed, elevating his knee, but causing his already withering penis to slide off his leg, looking pathetic and leaving a trail of come through the hair on his thigh. He wiped it up onto his hand and stared at the gleaming wetness. Worthwhile? + +Yes. He looked at his now prominently featured leg, riddled with thick gnarled scars and now quite obviously shorter than the other. He compared it to her leg extending out of the white sheet and curling over, not touching his. He thought about how she never seemed to touch him afterward and wondered if that revealed some revolsion or just a lack of intimacy, which then sent off wondering which would be worse. She was watching his face, he could feel her eyes surveying the terrain, gauging, hoping for some elaboration, but he refused to turn his head. Her eyes were like hurricanes on the weather report, swirls of white and dark spots where the storm bore down on someone, when it was the weather you could get by feeling sorry for others, but now they were bearing down on him, a wind was gathering on that side of bed and no divider or trundle would spare him, especially after he told her and the real cleaving began. + +Worthwhile. He repeated it as if the sound would somehow give it greater clarity. It slid off the tongue, it was a slippery word, compound, complex. He steeled himeself momentarily and then rolled over glancing at her eyes as he snatched the cigarette from between her lips and brought it, lipstick smear and all to his. The smoke tasted like stale air trapped in a basement with rotting rats and cochroach carcasses, it made his lungs recoil. Secretly he hated cigarettes, he hated that she smoked in his house, in his bed even, but in the year and a half that they had been enjoying these afternoon trysts he had never once set foot in her house. It wasn't the first time he had thought about it, nor was it the first time that the thought of it had made his own house seem older, his bookshelves more disheveled, the pictures hanging in the afternoon sunlight even more faded, the walls even more yellowed than they were. He imagined her house, bright and airy, the sort of place with a cool, clean tiled counters in the kitchen, yellow walls with framed black and white photos she had no dount taken when she was younger, a bedroom where everything was white and contrasted with the deep mahogany bedframe, the sort of place where catalog photographers spent their days off. Or perhaps she lived in a cheap apartment, some roach infested nightmare, he had no way of knowing. He was too embarrassed to ask. They had simple gone back to his house one afternoon, he poured her a drink and they did very little talking. In fact he had tried to talk and she simple grabbed him by the back of the neck and silence him with her mouth. It was sexy at the time, but thinking of it now he couldn't help realizing that it was precendant setting, it was a distancing action, it was a classic psycological defense mechanism and he of all people had failed to see through it. He realized, not for the first time, that was what irritated him that she was always in control. Despite being almost two decades older he was never in control when she was around. Not here, not at the lab, not during the experiments. + +He took another drag off the cigarette and handed it back to her blankly, turning his attention to the tuba propped up in the corner. It had been in the corner for nine of the ten years he had lived in this house and yet he had never once played the thing, never once even picked it up since he laid it there in the corner, propped against the chaotic bookshelving his ex-wife had built in a moment of inspiration. The saw she used was likewise gathering dust in the shed out back, along with paint that colored the bathroom, several old aplliances so rusted and collapsing in on themselves that it was difficult to assess exactly what their function had been. That's where everything goes, off to its respective shed to die and rot above gound or below. Waiben avoided the shed. When he went in the yard at all it was usually late at night, stumbling drunk looking for somewhere it pee. + +What are you thinking about? + +Nothing. The word worthwhile. + +The tuba for instance, was it worthwhile? He had given it to his wife for her forty-fifth birthday, she had played in a high school marching band, he always found it hard to imagine, her dimunitive five foot four frame with a tuba strapped to it, towering over her head like a balloon ready to tear itself out of a child's hand. This particular tuba had probably once belonged to a musican who knew how to use it, someone who had likewise marched in parades, high school football halftimes. But now it sat, tarnished brass religated to the status of prop, some distraction in the corner of the room for others to comment on, oh you play the tuba? No. It was a gift for my, nevermind. In the end it meant almost nothing to him, was it worthwhile? Is anything worthwhile, really? Was it worthwhile when it was a gift? In that moment of presentation did it fulfill its final act and collapse willingly even into the corner until such time as it would no longer exist at all. And when it ceased to exist would it then cease to be worthwhile? If it ever had been? + +So what do you think? + +I guess it depends on who you are, what you're talking about. + +I'm me, you are you. I'm talking about what we're doing? + +You mean now, here in this bed? + +No. I mean the work. + +Yes. It is worthwhile. It will help people. He said it slowly, listening to his voice harden around the words, waiting to see if he still believed them. + +You honestly believe that? + +He knew she just wanted to pick a fight. It was how she always left. It was how he knew at the end of day she felt nothing at all for him. It was simply easier for her to be with people she didn't like, detested perhaps, because then it was easier to leave. She was forever leaving. + +No. + +Then why say it? + +He thought about it. He thought about the lifeless tuba in the corner. He didn't want to tell her the truth, he knew as soon as he told her they would no longer have any connection at all, that the one common point would be severed and all that would be left was shared moments, memories that would fade blur and distort until they were nothing more than fodder for some poorly written memoire. Time cheapens everything, rust and decay always win in the end, in the physical and in memory, time rots the past like termites devouring wood until there's nothing but a spider webbed skeleton that stands for just a moment past its time and then collapses to dust. Worthwhile means that you want to do it again. And he did, he wanted to go straight back to the beginning and do it again. But do it right this time, screen the candidates more carefully, choose different assistants, to undo it all so that it was a shiny brass tuba again, bouncing playfully on the shoulders of his own smart uniform, marching in marshall patterns around the field, deep basenotes rumbling the bleachers and the cheers from everyone filling the night air. + +She took the cigarette back and leaned over to ash it on the floor. You don't take me seriously. I'm a lab rat that you happen to like fucking. + +Claire. He started and then stopped, allowing the truth of it wash over him, settle in and feel it before he proceeded to deny it. You aren't a lab rat. + +I'll also never be your wife. + +I know that damnit. What makes you think I want you to be my wife, have you heard me ask you to be my wife? + +Don't be cruel. + +It was the first time he had ever felt in control. He felt monstrous, cruel and strangly satisified. He heaved himself out bed before she could retort and stumbbled past the tuba toward the bathroom. He crashed unceremoniously down on the toilet, too little energy to even stand. He began to pee, thinking that he had been here for ten years, digging and plowing and sowing for little more than a Starbucks employee's wages, reaping what little the hail and the hot winds of academia were willing to grant. When he was done he stood and washed the come off his hand staring at his gray stubble and nearly bald head in the mirror. Enjoy it old man, that was the last time. + +She climbed atop him and sank down. He reached up and held her breasts, but she quickly grabbed his wrists, pinned them back behind his head and began the grind down on him, mashing her clit against his pubic bone. He began a familiar trip through the variety of memories he had carefully designed to sustain himself, a cotten hankerchief wrapped around his bleeding hand, the dream of the woman in the storm, sitting on her stoop, watching the flying snakes dance through the heavy air, the Red Sox in 1982, the rusted chevy he leaned against pouring vodka on his hand, the stinging raw white flesh folding back as his palm extended revealing a deep pale crevease of once-sealed flesh, the 1978 Boston Massacre four-game sweep, the thin blue pin stripes of Yankee uniforms, he could feel she was getting closer, he dismissed the images and wrestled free of her pinning grip, rolling her over and laying into her roughly, sweat pickling on his brow and back, she squirmed and he left a sense of relief, he ducked his head into her neck and slid out, a warm jet of sperm on her clenched thighs and he rolled over wandering if she cared that he had come. + +They lay silent, him staring at the ceiling, watching the fan drift lazily around, like a giant like a tape sprocket with tape streched so thin it was invisible, tiny cobweb fibers connecting him back, looping through all the sounds over again, warbled and unintelligible as if the conversation hadn't happened yet. As if the Dean hadn't ever stood from his maghogany desk, open the double doors, paused to eye his secratary's cleavage as he passed and walked down the hall to the elevator and smiled to himself as he pressed the down arrow. As if he hadn't stepped off at the basement floor and marched down the hall, his footsteps clicking smartly on the cold formica tiles until he came to Waiben's open door and tapped lightly. As if he hadn't entered before Waiben could say otherwise and rather proudly, without a word, laid the letter, typos and all, on Wiaben's desk before piroetting on the heals of his Italian leather shoes and marched smartly back down the hall to the elevator. As if his fat fleshly meatstick fingers hadn't pushed the up arrow with such self-satisfaction, his thick dull eyes taking in the secretary again before he disappeared into the stale, dank world where he existed solely to satisfy himself. + +Waiben turned off the bathroom light, emerged back into the bedroom and stood naked next to the tuba. If I wanted a lab rat I would use rats. And no, I don't know if it mattered. But it's stopping next week so this whole argument is moot. + +Who's arguing? She sat up and leaned over to flicked the cigarette out the window into the dry grass. + +You mean he shut it down? He can do that? + +It was a committee decision, I was there. I had my say. He's just an errand boy. + +So it was nothing? Just a bit of their game and we're gone? + +More or less. Yes. + +I want to disembowel him. + +As much as I hate him, it wasn't him. He doesn't even have the intelligence to concieve of decisions like that, let alone make them. + +It doesn't matter. There is always some one higher, some string or wire or something pulling something. In the end the blame is where you assign it. He has to answer to me. Part of me wants to do the same to you. + +So what are you going to do? + +Nothing most likely. She lay back and craned her arm out the window flicking the cigarette outside. What kind of car does he drive? + +He thought for a moment and smiled. A Toyota Celica I believe. + +She laughed. + +Then she got out of bed and began to collect her clothes. She pulled up her jeans, buttoned her shirt, walked over and kissed him lightly on the cheek. He heard her footsteps pass through the living room, the front door close and then silence. He went to the kitchen and poured a glass of bourbon. He threw back his head and then poured another. He wandered back into the bedroom. He could still smell her. He picked up the tuba ackwardly, the cool brass felt strangely enticing against his skin. He walked out into the backyard toward the shed. + + + diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/tucson 2.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/tucson 2.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f64c4ad --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/tucson 2.txt @@ -0,0 +1,35 @@ +The rain started before she was home, huge drops, slow at first one and then two and her windshield was covered. She sat at the stoplight watching the read light warble through and water smeared windows. A thin wire of lightning snapped down out of the cloud and lingered in her eyes long after it had retreated again. She looked the review mirror and made a feeble attempt to straighten her and quickly decided it didn't matter. It was over. Dean would be there when she arrived and he would know either way. He already knew. She had made no attempt to hide it from him. +It was nearly dark by the time Claire rolled under the carport, out of the downpour where Dean was standing, leaning against the neighbor's car, cigarette dangling from his lips. The night was pleasant, almost cool, whisps of mist floated out of the rain and under the roof of the carport. + Dean said nothing, watching her as she got out of the car. + Sorry I'm late. + He shrugged. + She felt guilt creaping in and tried to stop herself, but then felt guilty about the idea of being able to stop feeling guilty. + He flicked the cigarette out into the rain. + Let's keep this short Claire. I don't want a big scene. I just left my wife. + What? + Come on, I told you I was going to. + Jesus Dean. + And now I'm leaving you. In fact I'm leaving the this town too. + What about the bar? + Dean smiled cruelly. I let her have it. + Oh. Claire shift her feet. Where are you going? + To find someone you wouldn't want to find. + You know where he is? + Yes. + How? + Ask Waiben. He knows where he is. Though if things go well, I don't expect he'll be there much longer. + Claire felt her chest tighten. I must say I didn't... + You didn't what? + I just... + Claire, I know you don't love me. I don't love you either. I needed a way out. You were what I needed. + You were what I needed too Dean. + Well then. + You want a drink? + Are you serious? + Yes? Why not? Dean smiled. We're free Claire, we're all free. I love you. But I'm not in love with you, never have been. So why can't we just get a drink like two normal friendly people? + Claire felt something insane leaking in, a kind of giddiness she hadn't felt in months. Like something was lifting off of her, dissolving around her. + + + +back to Waiben pissing in the yard, Laslo shows up. + diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/tucson 4 flashback.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/tucson 4 flashback.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd81e1d --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/tucson 4 flashback.txt @@ -0,0 +1,289 @@ +"It was a lovely service doncha think?" + +Claire felt a little vomit start to migrate up her throat, but she just smiled at her aunt and nodded. Claire hadn't been at the funeral. True, her body had stood between Sil and her Aunt, but she never heard the words and just watched dumbly as everyone dropped a handful of dirt down a whole that contained some shattered remnants of her grandmother that the fire department had managed to salvage from the river a full twnety two miles from the canyon where her car was parked. Claire had spent most of the brief cemermony watching the traffic on N. Oracle speeding along as usual. Afterward everyone retreated back to their cars and as Jimmy drove them toward the foothills for the reception at her Aunt's house Claire watched a group of hotair balloons begin to slowly lift off from the small airfield on the outskirts of town. She did her time making rounds taking in condolances from well-meaning family members she knew would drive home commenting on the tattoo on her wrist, the small diamond stud in her nose, the unkept wildness of her hair, the fact that she had not one, but two men with her, the fact that she hadn't been to church since the eighth grade when James Becker tried to rape her bdhind the chapel and she broke his nose with a brick, the later detail seemingly the ony one anyone cared to remember, she smiled but she sould see the clucking disapproaval in her both of her aunts and the slightly creepy leering grin of their husbands, one of whom had tried to kiss her at his own wedding three years ago. + +As always Claire used cigarettes to escape her family. She slipped outside at the earliest possible moment and sat down on the patio table to watch her young cousin. He marched up to her a plfastic fireman's hat wildly cockeyed on his head and strangely out of place with the suit he still had on. "How are you Darren?" + +He shrugged and looked at her shyly. "You have a picture on your arm." + +"Yes I do Darren. It's called a tattoo, it's ink embedded... + +"What's it a picture of?" + +Claire pulled up her sleeve so he could see the whole tattoo. "It's all the signs of the Zodiac in a circle... When were you born Darren? March?" + +He nodded but kept staring at her arm. "This is your symbol right here." She pointed to Aries, which he leaned in to scrutinize closer. "You're an Aries. That means your symbol is the the Bull. Very strong." + +He seemed please by this notion and Claire neglected to add that he would very likely grow up constantly falling in and out of love, with a string of trailor park ex-wives spreading in his wake. + +"Which one are you?" + +"I'm Sagitarious, this on here, the little hook like symbol." + +"Why do you have a tattoo?" + +She smiled. I got drunk once and it seemed like a good idea was Claire reasoned, not the appropriate response to give a five year old, but somehow she had never come up with better one. "Why do you have a nose?" + +He laughed, "I dunno, everyone has a nose... do I have a tattoo?" + +She giggled and raised his shirt and begin to tickle him, "I don't know let's see..." + +He squealed and ran away, circling back around, but staying just out of arms reach. "I don't have a tattoo," he said finally. + +"No you don't. But you can get one some day if you want." Claire tried to picture her Aunt's face when Darren would relay this bit of information. + +"Are you on drugs?" + +"What?" Claire snapped around and grabbed him by the arm. "Who told you that?" + +"No one. I just heard my mommy say it to daddy this morning." + +"Oh she did did she? Claire sat back in the chair and pulled Darren up on her lap and wrapped her arms around him. "And what else did your mommy say this morning?" + +"About you? I think she said "You're anxious." + +"Do you even know what anxious means?" + +"Momma said you're anxious cause you want to know bout the hertiance." + +"How old are you Darren?" + +"I'll be six soon." + +"And your mother told you I was nervous about an inheritance..." + +"No she said anxious." + +"Right. Anxious. Because..." + +"Because you won't be getting any money." + +Darren's mother was looking out at Claire from behind the sliding glass door, she waved from behind the glass, comfortable in her air conditioned cocoon; Claire smiled and waved back stifling the urge to mouth bitch at her. Her aunt openned the door and beckoned Darren inside. He climbed off of Claire and wandered toward the door. Claire took another sip of the cheap boxed chardonney she had poured earlier, it tasted a bit like peach juice, but it was slowly having the desired effect. She stood up and wandered through the yard and out into the river gully running just beyond the back fence. There was a trail leading down in the general direction of the river and Claire followed it walking slowly and keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes and scorpions. A breeze had begun almost as soon as the sun sunk behind the Catalina Mountains, not strong enough to bend the stiff twiggy branches of desert trees, it moved though in whispers, puffs of air brushing against her cheek. She thought of airports, hospitals, departure points, the shuffling of human feet moving in and out of rooms like last quiet sighs of breath. Claire watched the river and wondered vaguely what its name actually meant. It seemed odd to her that she had lived next to or around the Rialto River for so many years without ever wondering what the word meant. She felt as if she were herself a desert only recently become aware that someone had flung a river down on her. Or with desert ambivalence she had always had a river running around her but had simply never noticed it. What then does the desert make of the river? As she studied the scene that was cascading down the slope and away from the organization of the manicured patio and yard, she decided that the desert seemed to ignore the river entirely. The river was starting to flood again, somewhere far upstream three days rain had been feeding until it swelled like a Christmas ham, but ten yards on either side and it was sand again. Stagnant pink sand interspersed with prickly plants and clumps of sagebrush and Mesquite trees, ironwood her grandfather called it. The sand didn't care for the water, didn't hold onto it, didn't even try, just let the water flow right on over it, puddle and collect, run off and feed into the river. Farther in the distance there were the mountains ringing the desert, keeping watch over it, making sure it behaved in some general way. + +She could see a figure emerge from the house and begin to slowly pick its way through the cacti and palo verde up the sloop toward the rock where Claire sit. It wasn't until he was halfway to her that she recognized Jimmy. He climbed up on the rock, but didn't say anything. + +She leaved her head on his shoulder. "Can I ask you a question Jimmy? It's a stupid question, but I read it in a magazine yesterday and I can't stop thinking about." + +"Shoot." + +"If you were going to do something for the sole purpose of getting in the Guiness book of world records what would it be?" + +Jimmy laughed. "That's easy. Land speed record. currently held by my uncle who drove a rocket powered car at 457 mph across a dry lake in Nevada." + +"Seriously? I mean your uncle is really in the Guiness Book of world records?" + +"Seriously." + +"Huh." + +"And you?" + +"I would skydive from the stratosphere like that guy did a couple years ago, only, obviously, I'd have to start higher." + +"Yes you would. Did you go through an astronaut phase when you were younger?" + +"Not really. Maybe. I don't remember." She took out another cigarette and lit it. Jimmy snagged it from her lips and took a drag. She watched him awkwardly puff out the smoke. "You know what I read once? The first thing an astronaut said the first time he orbited the moon... He said 'well, it's pretty gray.' It's pretty gray, Jimmy. It's pretty fucking gray. This asshole is the first fucking human to see the moon close up, to orbit around it in it's own gravity and he says it's pretty fucking gray. Fuck him." + +"He had an impoverished imagination." + +Her head snapped up from where it had been resting on her knee. "Life is a collision of imagination and observation, Jimmy, and he fucking failed." + +"Maybe." + +"No Jimmy. He failed. He was one of about thirty people that have seen the moon up close and all he got out of it was that it's gray. He fucking failed." + +"You're assuming that gray meant nothing to him, but what if his mother had gray eyes and that was the one memory that came back to him when he was overwhelmed by being that close to the moon?" + +She rested her cheek on her knee again and rocked back and forth for a minute before speaking. "You're sweet Jimmy. You always defend people and want to think the best about them. I love you for that. In spite of the fact that deep down you're cynical too. But you try and that's what I love about you." + +Neither of them said anything for a while. The watched the balloons drift slowly across the sky. + +"Are you okay?" he asked finally. + +"I think so. I mean she basically told me she was going to do it. I did my crying a few days ago, now..." She stopped. "I can't cry around them for some reason." + +"Yeah." + +"You know I once cried so hard I swallowed a moth." She giggled. "I was supposed to go out with this guy. This was junior high. Maybe high school. No junior high. Anyway we were supposed to ride our bikes to the park in the evening and he never showed up and I waited and waited. I was so in love with this guy. So at about 10 o'clock I'm out on the porch-sobbing... You know those huffing snorting kind of sobs that women make when they're really upset? Hyperventilating sobs... anyway, I was chewing gum. I always used to chew gum. So I'm in the rocking chair sobbing, arms around my knees... this is so pathetic... I inhaled a moth somehow and before I realized it I chewed him right into my gum. It was crackly at first, but then more like chewing feathers. I remember running in to tell my grandmoter I had eaten a moth... I can't believe she didn't laugh at me." Claire smiled and looked a Jimmy's brown eyes shielded from the sun by a red socks hat. "I had a lot of disturbing, uh, incidents in childhood. I used to kidnap cats when I was little." + +"Kidnap cats?" + +"Gamma wouldn't let me have a cat. She actually told me years later that she she didn't want the cat because she didn't want to become an old lady with cats. I mean after the plane went down... I dunno. She could occasionaly be quite vain. I think she felt awkward raising me at her age." Claire stopped. Jimmy could feel her body shudder against his. He pictured her face distorting, trying to swallow back tears like she had the night before. + +"Anyway," She sniffed and drew herself up laughing softly. "I would go out and steal them from neighbors... At first I just petted them you know. Then I got one to follow me home. I felt like he loved me more than his owners and I cried when Gamma took him home. I was probably seven or eight when this happened. After that I went farther from home, several blocks away where I knew Gamma wouldn't know whose cat it was and I would have to post signs, found: cat. That sort of thing so, you know, I would have the cat for longer." + +"Right." + +"But these cats wouldn't follow me home. Too far I guess. So I would save my lunch money and on the way home from school I'd stop at Circle K and buy myself a slushy and Moon Pie and can of cat food. Then I'd ride my bike past my house, way back into the subdivision and lure cats home by dragging the cat food on a string behind my bike. One time I pulled into my driveway with three cats running behind me." + +"You were a cat rustler." This drew a laugh. + +"Yeah. I guess I was. One time, after I posted a bunch of found cat signs and stuff this old lady came to our house to pick up her cat and she was so excited that I had found her cat she gave me twenty dollars -- which was a lot of money at that age -- and bells went off in my head. So then I started kidnapping the cats for profit. I mean, when I could. I tried to pick cats that looked pampered or that were sitting in front of old lady houses. You know lots of papers collecting on the porch. Beat up seventies sedans. Maybe that was me subconsciously realizing my grandmother's fears or something. Anyway I was pretty good at casing a block and finding the old lady cats. When they would come over I'd put on a cute little dress and smile and play dumb and they would give me a reward. One month I made $200. That's when my Gamma caught on." + +"What'd she do?" + +"Bought me a cat." + +"Smart." + +"Yeah, but by then I didn't want one." They sat in silence again. The balloons were higher now. AT some length Claire collapsed onto Jimmy's shoulder and sighed deeply sliding down so that her head was on his chest. "My family thinks I'm on drugs." + +"Of course you're on drugs, you have a tattoo." Jimmy smiled at her and she through her arms around him suddenly punching him softly in the back. "What? your aunt already grilled Sil and I about it. Plus Claire, you do take drugs twice a week." + +"That's different. And besides my aunt's been popping Somas since her car accident, that was two fucking years ago and she still acts like it's no big deal, but get a tattoo... Jesus. You know her own mother couldn't stand her?" + +"I'm sure that's not true..." + +"Wait until the executor reads the will... Oh and that's another thing, they're all gonna hate me... Gamma gave me everything, I asked her not to, I even threated to give it all to my aunt if she did, but she said it was for me." + +"So you have a house now and everything?" + +"I guess so, yeah. I don't want it though, I can't live there without her. It would be weird. Wrong. Why do I need it? I already have everything from my parents..." She turned on her back and let her head rest in his lap. She looked up at him; his eyes were shadowed by a Red Sox hat that Sil had given him. His lips were red and seemed suddenly incredably close. She drew in a breathe, closed her eyes and slowly lifting her head until her own lips pressed against his softly. + +When they returned to the house Sil was in the backyard engaged in some sort of complex war-like game of super soaker mayhem with Darren. Sil stood in the middle of the yard with a super soaker in each hand looking not unlike the cover of Rambo firing dual streams of water at Darren who also had two super soakers, but was crouched behind a cactus biding his time. When Sil's streams fell short darren was up in a nearly identical fashion, hosing Sil down. Sil made no effort to dodge out of the way instead he resolutely pumped the super soakers building the pressure back up. Claire noted from the look of Sil's suit this had been going on for some time. She and Jimmy stepped through the gate just as Sil rose up, super soakers recharged. He half turned and faced both barrels toward them, a wicked grin crosed his face. She and jimmy both froze. "Don't even think about Sil," Claire warned. "I will not be laighing." + +"This is Armani man," Jimmy added. + +"Okay. Darren, the war is over, you win." Sil walked over to the table and laid down the guns. Darren tore about the yard in circles, "I win! I win I win I win!" + +Sil stripped off his jacket and wrung it dry. "Not Armani," he said drily. He fished a pack of cigarette out of the coat pocket and lit one. "So Claire... Do you know a friend of your grandmother's named Ambrose?" + +"No." + +"Hmmph. Neither does anybody else here. Well. When we were leaving the cemetery, this man came up to me, greeted me by name and asked me to give you this." Sil produced a slightly soggy business card and handed it to Claire. + +She looked down at the tattered peice of paper. "There was a finely drawn image of two fingers about to grasp the tail of a dragonfly. To the left of the drawing was a partially smeared scrawl of handwriting that read: "Call me." Claire turned the card over and read a local number. "Did he say what this was about?" + +Sil took a drag and eyed her suspiciously, she blushed slightly under his gaze. "No. He just said he was an old friend of your grandmother's and that he wanted you to get in touch with him as soon as possible." Sil sat down in a patio chair. "At the time I didn't think much of it, but then when I was inside talking to your aunt about it... the fat one, what's her name again?" + +"Debbi." + +"Right, Debbi. Anyway I was asking her if she knew if your grandmother had any friends by that name and it suddenly occurred to me that he had greeted me by name. Granted a lot of people know my name from the bar, but I didn't recognize this guy and all the sudden it creeped me out. I dunno, maybe he just overheard someone else say my name or something... he was at the funeral. He stood in the back opposite us. I vaguely remember him. Probably he just heard you call my name... Anyway, I relayed the message. My work here is done." + +"Yeah. Thanks." Claire stuffed the card in her pocket and went inside. Jimmy sat down next to Sil and bummed a drag. + +"So." + +"So." + +"Oh fuck off man. I was out here chasing that little monster with super soakers for the last half hour. That hill might seem like it's far away, but it isn't." + +"What do you want me to say?" + +"That it wasn't what it looked like." + +"What if it was?" + +"Then you need to pay your tab." + +"What?" + +"Your tab at the bar. Pay it." + +"Fuck you Sil. It wasn't me." + +"Funny. It sure looked like you." + +"Whatever man. It could just as easily have been you if you'd wandered up there." + +"Mmhmm. But I didn't." + +"And so what? no one else can either?" + +"What happened to objectivity?" + +"Is that what this is about?" + +"No." + +"Well." + +"All right. Sorry. It's none of my business." + +"Then why..." + +"Forget it." + +"She'll go home with you anyway." + +Sil sniffed sarcastically. + +The glass door slid open and Claire emerged with another drink in hand. "What are you talking about?" + +"Jimmy's love life," Sil chuckled. + +"Oh." Claire turned crimson and sat down next to Sil. + +"So he told you?" + +"Told me what?" Sil asked cautiously. + +Claire looked back and forth at them suspiciously. She sighed. "Jimmy's heart belongs to an online porn star." Claire collapsed in giggles which she tried to contain in the harsh glare of Jimmy's scowl. + +"She is not a porn star. And she has a name." It was Jimmy's turn to blush. + +"Oh yes, her name Sil, is Haley Wilde -- wild with an e mind you," Chloe giggled again momentarily. "So tell us Jimmy," Claire straightened her back with an audible popping noise, "does she or does she not earn a living by video taping herself having sex and then posting those videos on web?" + +"She does, but she only has sex with her boyfriend..." + +"Whom she claims to be much in love with..." + +'...and other girls." + +"And other girls" + +Sil's eyebrows shot up his forehead accenting the fact that a good half inch of the left one was missing, "wait, you're in love with a lesbian who loves her boyfriend?" + +"Yeah." + +"Shit." + +"Shit is right." Chloe drained her glass and looked at Jimmy cockeyed. "Jimmy you're an idiot and I mean that in the best way possible." She reached over and grabbed Sil's drink. "Oh and the best part is she has a tattoo of dolphin where her pubes should be." + +"Lasers. Problem solved." Jimmy waved his hand. + +"You're better off learning to love it." Sil snatched his glass back from Claire and in spite of it's obvious emptiness, tipped it toward his mouth. + +"I kind of already have," Jimmy smiled sheepishly. + +Night drew up like the pony express, expected on time. Claire's relatives slowly trickled out the sliding glass door to reiterate their condolances and drive back to their lives, clucking along the way. As Jimmy predicted, Claire got out of the car at Sil's house. Sil stood in the drive watching the Falcon disappear in a cloud of dust down River road. Claire had already gone inside. Sil walked up to the porch and sat down in the dilapidated rocking chair left behind by the previous tenant. After a while Claire's head poked out the door and she informed him that she was taking a shower and going to bed. He nodded. The bats were darting across the glowing, city-lit horizen. He heard the water running. Sil stood and walked in to the kitchen to retreive a bottle of Stags Leap Petite Syrah he had been saving for some time. He returned to the parch and sat down with the corkscrew. He popped the cork and took a draw from the bottle. + +After a while Claire came outside wrapped in Sil's robe. She sat down on his lap and picked up the bottle. She tilted her head back and let the wine run freely down her throat. Sil watched her face. She set the bottle back down on the porch. + +"Was Jimmy serious about that girl?" + +"What? The porn star? Yeah pretty serious. He made me watch a few videos and asked what I thought. It was weird, like when you meet someone's new girlfriend only this was just a girl on a screen talking dirty, but not really dirty, more like cutsy dirty. And touching herself. It faded out as she was licking her fingers." + +"Hmm." Sil shrugged. "Does she seem like a good person?" + +"Well... I must admit there is something about her... I mean I haven't seen a lot of pornography, but she doesn't strike me as someone cut out for it, which probably means she's a decent person. And she's goregous. But I mean, she's trying to internet sex star and she already has a boyfriend -- can you really be in love with someone that unattainable?" + +"Love doesn't seem to abide hopelessness." Sil reached down and started to take a pull from the bottle of wine, but Claire stopped him and pulled the bottle from his hands. She cupped bother her hands around Sil's stubble covered cheeks. She held his face like that for a moment and then shifted her wieght on his legs and let go of his face. He reached down and picked up the bottle again. She sighed. "I'm sorry Sil. I don't know why I kissed him..." + +"How did..." + +"Sil. You don't exactly have a poker face. Well, actually your face is pretty good, but your eyes give you away." She lay back against him and nuzzled her head under his chin. "It doesn't matter... his lips were just there... I needed to feel them, to feel something..." Her voice trailed off into the stoic stillness of the desert night. They watched a small lightning storm on the horizen, thin little bolts zig-zaged down into the sodium glow of the city. Sil thought about something his uncle had once said about lightning being six times hotter than the surface of the sun and yet generally less than three-eights of an inch thick. + +Later Claire stood up and lightly kissed his cheek, lingering for a moment to feel the roughness of his beard against her own skin. And then she stood and disappeared inside. After a while Sil rose drunkenly from the chair and stretched his back. He leaned down to grab the bottle of wine and stumbled toward the grassy desert unzipping his fly as he walked. Leaning his head back to swig from the bottle he paused to stare at the particles of starlight sneaking through the bruised clouds. He began to piss on the grassy desert sand, thinking that you adjust your breath to the one who breathes beside you. You lie very close, still and alone. + +Sil was up with the sun fumbling in the half dark kitchen trying to find a grinder to go with the coffee beans already measured out in a cup sitting on the counter. He recalled with some amusement the apartment in Boston that he and Waiben had shared for four years, something his girlfriend as the time has considered exceedingly strange, "he's like what, sixty?" she used to say and then nothing more until Sil would correct her, "sixty-two actually." Sil used to wake up to Waiben singing "you got to get behind the mule every morning and plow" while he hunted around the kitchen for coffee beans. At that time they still had the old icebox that Waiben had found on the side of the road and patched up. Since it did the job neither of them thought to replace it for the better part of a year. When Waiben drank too much and passed out before sundown, he'd forget to restock the ice. The melted remnants of the previous day's block of ice would eventually force open the door and the contents of the icebox, including the bag of coffee would go crashing to the kitchen floor, skittering about on the icy water until they found their way into all kinds of strange places. "You got to get behind the mule every morning and plow" Waiben would sing while he slowly gathered everything up and restocked the icebox. When he invariably found the coffee lying in the farthest crack, he would squat down and scoot it along the floor over to the table, laughing and singing "...every morning and plow...every morning and plow..." Once Sil had crept up quietly to watch and he witnessed Waiben do a little dance, all crooked and insane owing to a bad knee that made his dancing hover between pathetic and comical. He would start gyrating at the waist, flopping his arms about while he sang. That first morning when Sil saw him do it, he momentarily thought Waiben was having a seizure the way he convulsed wildly about. Later Sil found out the line was a Tom Waits' lyric. + +Sil shivered as the grinder spun and he lit a cigarette waiting for the kettle to boil. He stepped gingerly across the freezing floor to stand by the open flame of the the stove. He glanced back toward the bedroom where he could see Claire sleeping. A ray of sunlight shot through the uncovered window to the right of the bed and the light slowly expanded, covering first the table and then worked it's way toward the white sheets where Claire lay. Her face was obscured in a swirl of coppery hair that spread out over her back and onto the pillow next to her, but her back was exposed and revealed her ivory skin marked here and there by the lines of pale brown, evidence of a spaghetti strap top worn in the sun, perhaps a bathing suit worn by the pool, the cholrine smell of summer suddenly washed over him and he was lost contemplating the linguistic transition from bathing costume to bathing suit until she stirred slightly in the bed and sheet moved to reveal the preternatually bright ink of the tattoo on Claire's lower back. The color of water and Lotus leaped up out of the white sheet as if heliotropically seeking the nearby patch of sun. Claire shifted again arching over and the tattoo moved into the sunlight. Sil momentarily closed his eyes and bit down on his already tightly clenched fist until it hurt far more than he had intended and the desire to leap on the bed and somehow dissolve himself over her somehow like a liquid banket of skin until he sunk into her, obliterating himself in the process like a stream ducking into the mouth of a cave bound for underground and never to return, had passed. Eventually he retreated back to the kitchen lest he act on impulse, though he was dimly aware that he wasn't so much restraining himself as merely postponing the inevitable with the vague promise of the indefinite. + +Coffee in hand he swung open the front door and stepped gingerly out onto what had once been the porch, but now served mainly as a means to inject splinters in his cold bare feet. The truth was Sil wasn't impervious to pain, he simply ignored it. He stepped slowly over the brittle gray wood and out into the sandy yard. He lit another cigarette and stretched his back in the sunlight. He turned and looked back at the house. The roof was rotten from termites and an extended family of rats lived in the ceiling panels. The walls were paper-thin, insulated with spider webs and the only heat came from the anceint pot bellied stove that spit sparks on his living room floor every time he opened it. He sat down in the middle of the desert driveway and watched a plume of dust forming in the distance, near the highway. That would be Jimmy he decided. The only thing that brought anyone out to this godforsaken stretch of land was necessity or occasionally the desire for something that could not be eaily obtained elsewhere. Sil sipped his coffee and waited. Eventually Claire emerged from the house behind him, coffee in hand and speaking in a slightly higher than normal pitched morning voice that drove Sil to parodoxical spasms of lust and tenderness. Before he could achieve the sort of niranic state he felt the voice would one day lead him to, the phone rang. Sil continued to sip his coffee but stepped inside to listen to the machine when it picked up. A crackling voice hestitated and then begin to ask for Claire. Curious Sil walked in and picked up. The man from the cemetery greeted him once more by name and asked for Claire. Sil hesitated but leaned out the front door and handed her the phone. He wandered off to the kitchen and began making breakfast. Claire came in just as Sil slid the eggs out of the pan onto the black beans and tortilla's already piled on two plates. "Everything okay?" + +"That man. The man you met yesterday... he wanted to know about Gamma's things..." She stared out the kitchen window at the clouds, thinking about the man's voice, something in it seemed to ooze and flow like sap or the sludge at the bottom of a cup of Turkish coffee, lavish with timbre and an opacity that reminded her curiously of the way her own voice sometimes sounded when she first made the leap into the hyperreality of DMT, as if he were speaking not with his toungue and lips, not even with his throught or diaphram but from someplace much further down, someplace anchored in rock and mode of words, as if he were caling them up. Aware suddenly of how long she had fallen silent she watched Sil carry the plate over to the table where she sat and tried to make her voice sound commonplace, "and then I dunno, he wanted to know if it would be alright to come by my grandmother's house and look for some book." + +"How does he know your grandmother again?" Sil sat down and began eating. + +"He said he knew her when she was a girl, but he didn't really elaborate." + +"So did you say he could come by?" + +"Yeah, but I didn't say when. He said he'd call next week. He's quite nice. I can't place his accent though." + +"Did he have an accent? I didn't notice." + +They ate and then Sil turned on the stereo and busied himself cleaning up the dishes. Claire lit a cigarette and stared out the sliding glass door at the desert. The clatter of dishes mixed with the music, violins and spoons, bass lines and sautee pans, snare drum and water mingling like sand paintings held together in precise stillness. The songs of time passing, the rattle of dishes wiped dry on the counter and laid up in mahagony cupboards, the green paint on the walls and French cafe poster over the shelf where Sil stacked his herbs. Claire had always admired Sil's house, which, in spite of being nearly abandoned in outward appearance, or perhaps because of its outward appearance seemed to her somehow ceremonial in its inner fasticidousness, which is not say that Sil was organized or neat by any means, but rather that everything felt as if it were exactly where it was supposed to be, regardless of where that might be, the dust on the bookshelves, the towel curled round the back of the sink to stop a leaky faucet, she tried and failed to imagine any of it changing. *Your grandmother had something that belongs to me, something I gave her a long time ago, but which I would like to have back.* The voice seemed to be in her own head she realized suddenly, that was what reminded her... it had the same quality of the voices that spoke inside her own head but which she was fully away where not "her," the only way she had ever been able to explain it to Jimmy was to compare it with an echo, your voice, but no longer in your possession, as if it were merely using you as a canyon in which to bound about like a child bouncing a ball off the walls of a corridor. + +Around noon Sil dropped Claire off at her grandmother's house. diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/tucson 5.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/tucson 5.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8681aa8 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/Unused/tucson 5.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@ +new intro to set up claire cleaning the house and falling in with Dean + +It wasn't until she stepped inside that the full force of it hit her, the air was stiffling, she felt as if her lungs were collapsing, a supernova of yellow kitchen walls, blue daisy curtains collapsing in on her, a bowl of rotten grapes on the counter, her stomach turned at the sunken orbs, already flakes of white mold spreading across them. She felt herself trying to suck in air and finding none, began to choke, a bit of bile in her mouth. The windows seemed to bend with caustic desert light, the glass warped and laughing at her. She felt herself gasping for air and retreated sobbing to the porch to where she spit out an orange gray bile and collapsed on the steps. "Once something dies you can't make it live," her grandmother was pulling out a dead basil plant accidentally left out and caught in a frost, it's gray wrinkled leaves made crisp crinkling sound against her skin. "It's the same with people Claire, once they're gone you can't get them back. Well, usually anyway." She chuckled lightly. Claire turned to look at her. "Everynow and then you might run across some people that do come back after they're gone the first time, but they're rare." + +Claire stopped crying and went back inside to get a tissue and blow her nose. Something about the mundanity of her mission perhaps, but this time the house felt neutral as if it no longer cared who came and went within it's walls. Claire stood at the kitchen window looking at the Sahorro cactus in the yard. She remembered planting it as a child, digging the hole with her shovel and how the man from the nursery helped them lower the small cactus in the hole, all of them gingerly avoiding the downward hooked thorns. In the twenty five years since the cactus has grown over six feet, but still somehow Claire felt, looked younger than her and she was sure would outlive her and then some. + +She avoided the closets, started in the bathroom where there was only one photograph, her great grandfather in an gilded oval frame. She studied it for a while thinking how strange to see someone she was directly descended from and yet might well have been an image in a textbook, so utter without connection or reference to her own life. He looked like a statue, something used a basis for fountain sculpter, his shoulders draw up sharply, the antiquated upright posing style of the day, trapped without color on a photographs stool, cursed to yellow with age. A small crack in the photograph had begun to peel and the left side of his face was cripped white and obscured. She spent the afternoon pitching lotions and powders in a trashbag, dried out, crusted Lancome bottles, Tylenon that had solidified to a single clump, hemroidal creme that she refused to touch without the aid of a tissue, Windex and Clorox, bottles of pills and medicines long expired, a deck of cards she kept, she shut her mind down and nothing produced any emotion save a frizzled and frayed toothbrush which should have been replaced months ago and Claire remembered saying as much to her grandmother and how she had simply shrugged. Claire sighed heavily and went outside for some air. + +It was well past dark by the time she went home. There were four garbage bags out front of the house, when Jimmy picked her up. They drove in silence and didn't say a word walking up Claire's steps. Inside the door she turned and they tore at each other's clothes. + +Flashback to Sil and Dean having ti out and parting ways. + diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Claire/tucson_cuts.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/tucson_cuts.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b3e227b --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Claire/tucson_cuts.txt @@ -0,0 +1,586 @@ +Before she could answer Ethan's head jerked to the left and the side of it seemed to melt away, as if his face were dissolving. His mouth was still moving as he collapsed down to the floor. A split second later the glass door shattered. Claire covered her mouth to keep from screaming. She backpedaled into the pantry and looked around for somewhere to hide. She climbed inside the dryer and flung the door up to close it behind her. She heard a crashing sound, splintering wood, the front door being bashed in. There were voices, muffled murmurs making their way inside the dryer. Then yelling, very loud yelling, still too muffled to make out. Then the house was quiet again. Claire waited. She forced herself to wait longer. Then she began to feel light headed and decided taking her chances was better than suffocating. She pushed the door open with her head and found that both her arms and her legs were asleep. She rolled herself out of the dryer and lay on the cool floor while the blood returned to her extremities. Eventually she pulled herself up and peeked out of the shadows. There was no one in the kitchen. Ethan's body still lay on the floor where it had fallen. She crawled along the floor, past the stove where a huge puddle of blood pooled out from his head across the linoleum. She saw little chunks of bone and skin stuck to the wall. She kept her head focused down on his feet and gently rolled him over. The gun was covered in blood, but still there. Claire wiped it off on Ethan's shirt and pulled out the clip to clean it. It wasn't loaded. Fuck. She pulled herself over to the wall and slowly peeked her head up over, looking through the railing. The front door had been broken in half and the street was visible beyond it, but there was no one there. Claire stood up and darted down the hallway to her grandmother's room. She opened the closet and threw her hand up on the top shelf, feeling around until she found a box that rattled. She pulled down the bullets and hurriedly shoved them in the clip, her hand shaking as she did. She jammed the clip back in the gun and slid back the top releasing a bullet into the chamber. She walked back down the hallway, peeked around the corner. There was still no one there. She crawled across the floor, trying to stay below the window, until she could reach her bag. + + + +You should have seen it Claire. Bringing those magnets across the desert was unlike anything I've ever witnessed. We went down to Bombay, just to watch them unload the things. They're bigger than the huge flatbeds that dragged them over the desert. There were protestors from all over the world down by the docks. I'm sure you've seen some of the protests that we've had... Well, for this protest everyone came over to Bombay and they were trying to block the docks. I went partly to see the magnets and partly to make sure things didn't get out of hand... as if things are ever in hand in India, but anyway, all the protestors are at the end of the docks and the workers start pulling the magnets out on these cranes that were brought especially to do this and only this, everyone is chanting no more wars or some nonsense and then the first magnet comes up out of the hull of the ship and it's like the opening of Star Wars when the massive ship goes overhead. It cast a shadow over the whole dock area and all the chanting stops and everyone, even me, is standing there, mouths hanging open in shock. I'd never seen anything so massively large in all my life. Such a monstrosity that the sheer size of it hushed several hundred people that had, up to that point, been getting more unruly by the minute. Waiben shook his head. It was something. And then the the crowd part and the magnets passed through without a word. No protest, no incidents, nothing. All the way across the desert. I got to ride in a helicopter that followed the trucks. There were half a dozen heavily armed helicopters, Royal Guard troops on the ground, riding in armored vehicles, AI predator drones flying along side the helicopters. It was wild. + + * * * * + + + +The plane banked hard and Waiben just barely grabbed his scotch before it slid off the table in front of him. He tucked the glass in his elbow and hurried fastened his seatbelt. As they leveled out and swooped low over the Mountains Waiben could see the clouds around TK observatory, wondered what poor scientist up there had seen the same sizmograph readings he had and unlike Waiben, was unable to do anything other than wait. Wait so see what the anomoly was, an earthquake perhaps... Waiben doubted most anyone would have made the leap to nulear detonation, it simply wasn't something the average imagination was yet able to wrap itself aroun, the inconcievable being comes conseizable only after... the real fallout of historical event is simply that it is now added to realm of possibilities -- no one in Washington had believed the early reports of the haulocaust not because they denied the facts, Waiben believed -- with the sort of 20-20 hidesight that comes naturally to scientists -- but because there was quite simply no precedent in their imaginations, nothing that so much as hinted such a monsterous thing could happen... and yet it had. Waiben imagined the response to the bombs in Los Angeles would be much the same -- disblief, denial, not this time because the bomb itself was unthinkable, afterall hundreds of nuclear bombs had been detonated, but only twice on people, and only then in war... the onlys, the qualifications still kept it out the general consciousness of the world... leaders might threaten, militaries puff their chests, but everyone deep down knew that no one was that crazy. + +Unless of course they happened to have access to Pesident Nadar and know what had been obvious to Waiben the first time their eyes met -- this man is insane. Of course it was very likely, Waiben reflected, that Nadar thought the exact same thing about him, though of course for wholely different reasons. But as soon as Waiben had first met with the president he had broken out in the cold sweat and hurried home to scan the globe and I2 in search of some place where perhaps sane people still held power, or, even better, where power was so dispersed that it effectively ceased to exist in any practical way, turned in on itself and became the furthest extremes of what Kafka parodied, which Waiben reasoned, was actually not hard to avoid -- you just need to make sure you stayed well clear of such a hydra like structure's many mouths. Stay out the mouth, stay out of its power. It was this line of logic that made him remember India. It was a return visit that convinced him the future lay there. + +The co-pilot emerged from the cockpit with a clipboard that Waiben already knew held their bogus flight plan, one that called for them to head north east to Kansas City. The co-pilot flopped into the chair next to Waiben. + +So was that what I think it was off to the west? + +Probably. It's been some time coming. + +So where are we really going. + +Where do you think? + +For good? + +If you want... why, something down there you'll miss? + +Tacos? + +Waiben smiled and nodded. He reached for the clipboard and studied it for a while. Stay low, under 4000 if we can, until we hit Mexican airspace. Then climb a bit and put out a distress call asking if we put down in TK by Corpus Cristy. It's a small airport, by the time they figure out we aren't inbound we'll be in international airspace and it won't matter. Then we refuel in St. Kitts and make the hop to Ferdinand Poo. Then we'll figure out where the cards have fallen... + +The co-pilot looked up from his notes, where they've fallen? + +Look. I don't know who did it, I don't know if it's all a big government conspiracy to enact martial law or if it's some rogue group acting on their own... it doesn't matter. I know what the consequences will be. + +Everything will change. + +Exactly. Except where we're going. + +Well, then I guess we better get there. + +The sooner the better. Waiben said as the co-pilot headed back to the cockpit. Waiben looked down at the desert below watching the shadow of the plane skim along the speckled brown and green landscape. + + + +------------------ + +Waiben sat across the table from her. Her hands trembled a little as she wrapped them around the empty glass. + +Can I get you some more? She looked in his eye for a sign, a dropping of formal guard, some acknowledgment that this was the first time in six years that they had been alone together in the same room, that can I get you some more was in fact the first words they had spoken in six years, that he had studiously avoided her throughout the afternoon, always seeming to move ten steps ahead of her, a shadow preceding himself, as if he somehow held back more light than most people, had some extra light absorbent clothing, his dark, but not African skin, something Central Asian perhaps, but there was nothing there and so she nodded and he stood, the chair making a harsh scraping noise in the silence of the house. She gingerly slipped out of her own chair and walked out onto the + +---------- + + +under the first blue sky to blow through after a week of torrential spring rain. The lightning storms, brutal even by Tucson standards, sent enough white hot bolts into the sandy expanses surrounding Tucson to keep the glass collecting hippies in business for months to come. + +The rains fell hardest on the upper slopes of the Catalina Mountains, splashing through the pines and cedars, dripping down the leaves of red-barked manzanita and mountain laurel bushes to the needle-covered forest floor. Rivulets gathered beneath the pine needles and made their way to gullies, joining forces as as they sloshed into ragged ravines, tiny streams that met up on the sandy lower slopes of the mountains, where the desert reached up with rock and gravel for the taking -- pebbles at first, a few moving some yards while the stones held on for the larger waters. Further down creeks began to attracted larger hunks of granite, pulling them toward the point at which everything converged in the Rialto River where stones met with boulders and whole trees torn out the ground by the angry waters, churning now with an eye to the south, some insane dream of siestas in the Mexican shade, unaware of the boulder choking dams that awaited it and willing to smash steel and bone on its the way to the sea. + +------- + +Claire's jazz discernment skills had been honed over the last six years in New Orleans, though in truth after her discovery of Sun Ra and his Intergalactic Arkestra she pretty much wrote off the rest... why keep searching if you've already found what you were looking for? Kill me and Shrimp seemed to have been inspired by some of the progressive jazz meets downer rock that had briefly flourished in Chicago some years back, a revival of an even earlier experiment along the same lines, what happened when bored white kids tried to apply math and theory to jazz. A likable, but somewhat cold form of music, made all the stranger by the warmth of what it had grown out of ... Kill Me and The Shrimp ended up, as best Claire could sort it out, as a revival several times removed -- how do you get from the Harlem renaissance, to Miles and Charlie Parker running off into experimental land to frolic amongst the confusion and find great profit in the adoration of white listeners desperate to escape the musical dead end of big band swing to a jazz rock fusion. She twisted the lineage around in her head as the band played, trying to follow the melody lines, but like the history it ended up a tangle. In the end she decided that while Kill Me in the Shrimp didn't have much to add to a line of musical pedigree so twisted and confusing PhDs were offered to those who could sort it out, somehow there was s + + +-------- + +Where is Medina? + +Waiben looked up from his collection of monitors. Back in Mexico I believe. After you left I stayed in India. I sent her some money, and arranged for her to go back if she wanted. + +Claire nodded. That was nice of you. + +He shrugged and turned back to the screen. + +True. Well, I'm in no hurry. Just an empty hotel room waiting for me. Claire put her eye back to the telescope, I'm enjoying the view. But she was thinking that it would have been even nicer to find Medina and bring her back for the funeral. Though Medina had never met Claire's grandmother, Claire had come to think of Medina as a sort of surrogate mother and sometimes forgot that Medina was not in fact her grandmother's daughter. + +Medina would come by around noon to prepare lunch and the often untouched dinners. At first Claire didn't speak to her much, they were both, for different reasons, shy, Claire, like all only children, had no trouble ignoring her, not that she was rude, not that she didn't care, not that she was even shy, though sometimes she was, but simply that Claire was so used to total immersion it was always easy to ignore anything that might be happening outside that moment's immersive object. And then one day Claire couldn't focus and so she went in the kitchen and watched Medina cook, noticing that she seemed to pay attention to things Waiben never recorded in his food journals, like what a sauce tasted like, or how fresh the eggs were. + +Claire was halfway through commenting on the fact that Waiben seemed utterly unconcerned with the taste of food when she realized that Medina did not seem to speak much English. Later she was thankful Medina hadn't understood her since she soon realized that Medina wasn't tasting the sauces for Waiben, but for herself, to make sure she was meeting her own standards or living up to the invisible pressures she felt. At the time Claire slunk out of the kitchen feeling like a fool, but the next day she noticed Medina struggling to read one of Waiben's notes and so she translated as best she could with pantomimes a bit of broken Spanish picked up on schoolyards until Medina understood. It wasn't long before Claire spent all her time in the kitchen when Medina was there, leaving Waiben's books and her own notes scattered on the dining room table to talk in halting Spanish with Medina. Over the course of two years Medina became nearly fluent in English and Claire nearly so in Spanish. Medina was from Montepio, Mexico, a small town by the gulf. Her father had been a salt worker, her mother kept busy with half a dozen children, of which Medina was the eldest. Claire had been reading Anna Karinina at the time and consequently much of Medina's stories blended together with Tolstoy's romanticized vision of Russian Peasants and Claire's own escapist imprints of what life in small Mexican village surely must be like, though these illusions were somewhat shattered when she learned that I2 had made its way to Montepio. That modern trappings like online human assistants and Your Man in India (Medina looked at Claire like a she was a simpleton when Claire said that YMII seemed like it would, well, be something that involved people in India) had led Medina to Waiben and consequently to Tucson was Claire's first hint that he was not as decidedly anti-net as he seemed. But she was disappointed to learn that Medina had not slipped clandestinely over the border at night as Claire imagined, but arrived unceremoniously in Waiben's personal jet and, with his escort and few envelopes of money, simply skipped customs and moved straight to the apartment he had already rented. + +Why exactly Waiben had spent the time, effort and money to bring Medina Stateside when there were hundreds of Medinas already in Tucson was something Claire never thought to ask. It seemed beyond a doubt that Medina was in fact the only one who could do what she did as well as she did it and Claire was simply unable to imagine anyone else doing it. + +And yet now, staring through the telescope, for the first time Claire wondered, why Medina? + + +---------- + + + +So she did what she had been doing all year, she went to the library and logged into I2. The first thing she found were clinical papers and scholarly sex studies which she skimmed for bit and decided that such meta-game critiques were unimportant to the actual play of the game. Then she tried porn, but found that all the looks of love were staged. Well, not all, but the rare instances when it wasn't staged were too few and far between to bother sorting out. The only real thing Claire recalled learning from porn was that the game board of sex was infinite, but there were some places and some cards she was pretty sure did not appeal to her. That and that other men apparently like to slap their cocks against your pelvis, a habit she was glad Waiben seemed unaware of. + +Finding porn a dead end, Claire turned next to art. Still photography had a way of capturing the sexiness of individual moments in a way that its video counterpart seems to glossy right over without giving the view time to appreciate it. Photography told the story of s single moment, it left the moments that led up and the moments that came after to the imagination, which was far more powerful than any other piece in the game of sex. + +Naturally it wasn't long before Waiben's books began to change. It started with Reich, perhaps an innocent choice on his part, perhaps not, but soon she found Henry Miller on the table. Miller was what Waiben's note called a sensualist, a word that would forever remind her of The Brother's Karamazov, in a good way, but she found Miller decidedly short on the actual sex bits and she told Waiben as much. The next week there was the The Story of O. Now were getting somewhere thought Claire as she read with one hand. Next up with the Marquis de Sade, who might have had something to say about sex, but Claire never found it because the book was, without a doubt the worst writing Waiben had ever set on the table and she threw to book out the window of the bus one day on her way back downtown and refused to have sex for a week. It was Anne Laroque that opened her eyes to more possibilities than anyone else. It was the words that drove her mad, it was always words, whispered in her ear and the lay next to each other, breathed through the phone while he was at work, she by the pool, hands between her legs. Words that opened the doors in her imagination and led her to places she had never known. She latched on to Anne Laroque's Sleeping Beauty series in way that she hadn't bonded with any book since she read Flowers in the Attic at the tender age of ten. + +It was sleeping beauty that made her ask Waiben for a spanking and it was there, bent over his knee, relishing the devilish tingle in her skin every time his hand came down that she knew the way forward. The next week she convinced him to wrapped his hands around her throat, starved of oxygen as the blood rushing throughout her, circulating in pulses, drawing through the heart, picking up speed headed for the brain where the hands built tension, pressure, a vacuum opening up in her head, and then the release, the collision of everything all at once in deep thrusts of blood, air, flesh and static pops of light at the edge of her vision. Before long Claire was reading books on knots, sailing manuals from the nineteen century, discovered on the back shelves on a used book store in Albuquerque where they spent his birthday, to celebrate openly where no one knew them. Waiben played along at first, submitting to the handcuffs, the tickling, the ropes, the riding crop, but grew wary of the darkness in her eyes during those moments when he was helpless... then it went further, she produced real whips, clamps, electricity, until his bedroom had begun to resemble a strange cross between a medieval dungeon and an auto body shop. + +It was then that Waiben left the tantric book on the table. There was no note, just a slim illustrated volume with sanscrit text. Claire poured over it, having already grown bored with kink and fetishism. She was searching for something more, stumbling forward blindly, groping for the point of the game. There had to be something beyond mere kink, the fetishism of behavior, something more. She could feel something beyond every time she came, some glimpse of something hidden that was so fast and so disorienting as to be totally unprocessable, but it was there nonetheless. And she found it in the half decayed sketches of 2000 year old book. + +A few days later Waiben came home to find the whips, chains and auto body shop accouterments gone. Claire was sitting naked on the bed in a half lotus position, meditating with a vibrator between her legs. He almost burst out laughing, but somehow managed to quietly back out of the room without disturbing her. He went downstairs, outside to smoke a bit of hash. He reviewed his notebook, a record of Claire's experiments very different than her own, lacking the more ambient descriptions, but detail enough that he could review nearly two years worth of sex at a glance, complete with an index by date. Two years he decided was long enough. He waited until she came down stairs, wearing a silk robe and talking about tantric sex to ask if she would like to go with him to India, where they were talking of building a collider, something Waiben had been trying, unsuccessfully, to raise money for for years. He tried to work it in casually, using the tantric opening to make it seem like to fit, but the very next day he was at the jeweler's picking out something simple and elegant that he would hide in a shoe at the bottom of his suitcase and, as it turned out, never remove. + +---------- + +she became insatiable, both out of desire and out of curiosity. It seemed somehow inevitable in hindsight that she would take him down roads he had never considered, only dimly knew existed, that the beginning was half sex, half wrestling was the signpost he had missed, that it would end as it began in a kind of playful violence that neither he nor she could ever really control. The problem, as she remembered it was that his curiosity had never quite extended as far as hers. He was older, had already been with many women and had certain tastes as one acquires with experience in anything. He did his best not to let them get in the way, but he was not prepared to go as far as Claire wanted to go. + +Outwardly little changed save the sex. She began to come by earlier, stopped spending her morning staring at the light in the entryway and spent ti staring at the ceiling his bedroom, or more often, the closet across the room. + +Waiben still left for the university and came home in the evenings to an empty house, but a house tinged with the smell of her, of them, of something he could never identify, not their sweat, not the come, not a perfume, not a shampoo or deodorant, something organic and seeping out of her that lingered long after she was gone. He would sit at his desk, papers spread out before him, inhaling, feeling a renewed energy creep over him that often lasted well past midnight. + +---------- + + + + + +what began as a harmless spank, a playful snap from a wrinkled dress and the command, get back to work, turned soon enough into a craving, a need that grew out her from someplace she had previously kept locked up ... + +... and then on, so far neither of them could ever really see the end of it and it scared him more than her she realized toward the end, not that he was afraid of her or what grew between them, but that he could not go as far as she was willing, that he would have to stop before she reached the end. Somewhere in the middle, the work on the collider began to change, no longer was it an abstract thing he worked on during the day, she began to demand progress, to see sketches, to hear of successes and failures... no longer was Waiben carrying on the work of the dead, but carrying on the work, the demands, of the living, the living who would push themselves beyond any reasonable human limit and drag him along beside her until it was no longer a thing separate from him, it was a thing growing out of him, a thing she was forcing out with every bit of semen, spit, saliva, sweat and blood, the red welts on his skin, the blue bruises on her breasts, and it grew, sketches on paper, graphs, remote experiments in the Alps, a curiosity as insatiable as appetite itself, linked, inexplicably to the boundaries they pushed together, penetrating another world, creating a space that did not previously exist ... She never had the heart to do the math, was afraid of what it would say, preferred to remain limp in chains, wrapped tight in plastic, breathing in gasps, shaking and raw from the sodomizing handle of a bullwhip while Waiben sketched diagrams on an enormous piece of graph paper hanging on the wall in front of her... Sometimes she found bits of it in him, begging on hands and knees, watery eyes, hoarse voice crying out directions between bloody gums licking at the steel teeth of the chastity belt, gumming mercilessly in self-flagellation as Claire with the no 4 bic wrote furiously trying to keep up with both pen and whip, to lay plans to push this world into the next... + +---------- + + + + + + + + +Occasionally she would pilfer a book from Waiben's shelves or read one of the books he left on the table for her, physics textbooks mainly, so of them mentioned her father, she read half-understanding, frequently pausing to stare off at the Catalina mountains in the distance. She that Waiben took a mad scientist's delight in learning that she was actually reading the books he left so she began to stop by more frequently in the evenings. One night, sitting on the desk that had, for a brief period of time somehow managed to shed its portion of the world's paper, she noticed Waiben glancing periodically at her legs. She tucked them back under the shadows of the table and Waiben went on about rules for reading. No, not rules exactly, he bit his lip in thought and for once seemed to measure his words rather carefully, rules are not good, suggestions based on experience, that's what I'd call them... She listened, but she was thinking about her legs and what they might mean to him. + + +The suggestions, as it turned out, were pretty benign. Read non-fiction in the morning. Not immediately after breakfast when the food might make you feel sluggish, but soon after digestion had settled down and the brain was well primed to absorb convoluted subjects like string theory with the sort of sharpness that cutting edge science requires... you must have the mental acuity and prowess necessary to wade through the conjecture and theory to find those nuggets of truth that might lurk in the corners obscured by poor writing, substandard testing and all manner of other sins found in non-fiction authors... it's not that they aren't good at their craft, it's that their laziness is less forgivable Claire. Waiben popped a fresh piece of Nicorette in his mouth and continued. If fiction writer is lazy, the result is just a bad book, if it's non-fiction, well there's more damage to be done isn't there? Untruths, half-truths, lies, we're led astray, and to half-understand something is far more dangerous, unforgivable even, than to remain ignorant of it altogether. The devil is in the details okay? Never forget that. It might be a cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason, the devil really does live in the details. And the devil is what we're after in this world. + +Just before summer arrived Claire was forced to finally tell her grandmother she had dropped out of school. There would be no graduation, just a diploma in the mail. Claire ended up tearfully confessing one night, though she carefully left out anything about Waiben, not so much to hide him from her as to avoid discussing her parents. Instead said she had been spending her days at the mall, the Y, the library and other places she reasoned her grandmother would believe she had been. Later she realized she should have told her the truth, that one day she went looking for her father and found someone else entirely. + +With night school over, Claire had no reason to go downtown in the afternoons so she stopped dropping by Waiben's office, which was just as well since Waiben's classes were out too and research had kicked into overdrive. Consequently Claire saw more of Medina, the housekeeper who came by each day to clean, tidy up and make dinner for Waiben, than she did of Waiben. It wasn't long before Medina insisted on making Claire lunch every day. Her persistance reminded Claire of her grandmother. Claire wasn't sure if it was so much a desire to feed her, as a desire to confirm that Claire actually ate her lunch, which gave Medina some satisfaction, unlike the meals she prepped for Waiben, which half the time he never came home to eat, leaving the tupperware in the refrigerator for days until Medina or Claire threw it away. Waiben had already explained his eating system to Claire, which, like the reading system, was a kind of self-optimization designed in part for convenience and in part to make him more productive. Waiben ate frequent small meals throughout the day to avoid the mental lag he claimed was associated with the digestion of food. Claire had never noticed such a thing, save perhaps for Thanksgiving day, but Waiben claimed he had documented the effect. In fact, he showed her years worth of meticulous records detailing his eating habits in a collection of spiral bound notebooks. It's a food database. A what? A food database... that what that produces the why... What? Have you ever had a brilliant idea? Uhm. Of course you have. Haven't you ever wished you could have more brilliant ideas? I guess so, yeah. Well, I wanted more brilliant ideas too, like you father Claire, he swore brilliance came from peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Well, I tried that, it didn't work for me. So I started keeping track of everything I ate to see if there was some connection between any brilliant ideas and what I had eaten that day... Was there? Of course. If there wasn't we wouldn't be having this conversation. Never mind Claire, another time. + +Eventually she got her hands on the food database. It was everything. Literally everything Waiben had consumed and any variation in mental state that a particular food or combination of foods might produced. She spent a whole day by the pool reading through the food database, learning in excruciating detail everything Waiben had consumed for the last three years. His breakfasts consisted of fruit and slow carbs -- eggs and black beans with a bit of spinach or green lentils, egg whites and spoonful of flax seed oil. Several hours later he would eat a hobbit-inspired second breakfast of spinach or other vegetables mixed with Pinto beans or half a chicken breast, followed by another piece of fruit. Afternoons meant a light meal at two, a few ounces of grass-fed, organic beef with asparagus or fish with more lentils. He would stop for snack of fruit and a touch of bread in the evenings before settling down to a larger, protein-heavy meal around eight. At first the regularity and lack of variety appalled Claire, but then she noticed his notes claiming increased energy and corresponding developments in his work. He seemed to become more efficient over time, even having time to add more detailed notes as time went on. Waiben was also a fervent consumer of tea. Not, she noted one day when she decided to try some, the sort of tea most people kept, which was sold in boxes that contained bags which were dunked in water. Waiben used raw tea leaves when possible and brewed his own private combinations of various leaves from around the world. Medina would combine the dried leaves according to his instructions, label the results and store them in the cupboard. One concoction Waiben favored involved Yerba Mate and an Oolong Tea by the name of Honey Dan Chong, a name Claire like so much that for a while she swore she would name her first child Honey Dan Chong. + +Claire was both fascinated and appalled by the food database, which, perhaps more than anything else in hindsight, had piqued her curiosity about Waiben as an actual person, more than just a link to her lost father. Her fascination with the food notebooks lay in the simple act of doing, that you could in fact record in minute detail everything you ate. Perviously Claire had not considered this within the realm of things you could do. It deeply offended her teenage sensibilities about freedom, priorities and the seemingly grave importance of only doing things that mattered, but it was yet another thing to be added to the list of things you could do. In the end, at least with the food notebooks, she ended up giving in to her curiosity and began to record her own eating habits, starting, as Waiben suggested in a card attached to the chartreuse spiral bound notebook she found wrapped up just inside the front door one morning, without changing her existing eating patterns, simply noting what she ate and how she felt after eating, if she did in fact feel anything noticeable at all. And she did. Feel that is. Eventually the Cokes and Twizzlers, which she noticed on rereading her notebook often made her briefly alert, but then sluggish and inclined to napping in the sun, were replaced with more fruit, water and occasional cups of tea, though she found, much to her disappointment that neither the Yerba Mate or the Honey Dan Chong agreed with her stomach or brain. + + + +She began to read with greater intensity, spending far less time staring off at the Catalina mountains, less time by the pool even, and more time at the table, books spread out before her, taking notes and recapitulating much of what she was reading. Looking back on it, it was fairly obvious that Waiben had essentially tricked her into going to college, his own private college, with its rather strange curriculum, equal parts fiction and non, imaginative and mundane, a college where the main curriculum seemed to be her, or her understanding of herself, which, she realized later is perhaps the most difficult thing in the world to study, the one thing that no one else can possibly understand, the you that is you, separating the innate from the personality, the personalities from each other, digging deeper and deeper until you where swimming in depths where the light was so faint, gravity so weak that it was easy to loose track of which was up, which down and where, if anywhere, you might have been headed. + +But the beginning was nothing but wonder and astonishment. So pleased with the her food notebook experiment and the resulting dietary experiments, Claire began to experiment on herself in other ways and kept detailed notes about what happened. She accidentally became a prolific writer, expanding from simple food databases to more elaborate journals about what she was reading and what she was thinking. She wasn't entirely sure that she understood herself any better because of it, but rereading what she wrote later, she found she was able to do something she had never done in school: learn. She learned in a way she never had before, going beyond the pure statistical data that school had tried to shove down her throat, to something far more valuable and interesting, a way to cultivate her own curiosity. She began to notice things she had never seen before, patterns that surrounded her, patterns of eating, patterns in books, patterns in thoughts, patterns in the light in the entry way, patterns in the rugs upstairs, patterns in the rippling of the swimming pool. She even began to notice a pattern in the books left on the table for her to read. Three months into what was to become her longest running experiment, yoga, she realized that the soon after she had begun her food experiment Waiben had left the first edition translation of the Yoga Sutras. That she moved from food to Yoga seemed so natural at the time, it wasn't until later that she saw Waiben's hand guiding her. It made her wonder what it was he wanted. She dug out the copy of the Yoga Sutras and reread the post-it note still stuck to its tattered green cover saying that it was essential for anyone who wanted to understand the why that came with the what. At the time she had simply signed up for a few classes at the YMCA and then surreptitiously downloaded a few videos at the Library's I2 terminal which she then ferreted onto a thumb drive. + +It wasn't long before she could bend both physically and mentally in ways she had previously never imagined, carefully recording her progress in an ever growing collection of notebooks. + +Exactly whom she had found was still not clear to her even now, but with her grandmother gone she did know that Waiben was her last remaining link to her parents and that thought made her want to run. Run as far and as fast as she could, back to her life in New York, as far from Tucson and Waiben and India and all the rest as she could get it. And yet here she was, sitting on the cool smooth leather of his couch, staring out the desert she could just never seem to fully escape. No matter how far she ran, some desert always appeared. She wondered if she would ever just accept the desert, but deep down she already knew the answer. + +It was the same answer she had always had, no. She said no to school, eventually she said no to Waiben and she always said no to the desert, though she would not, when things first started, had thought of it that way. The closest she came to no for a long time was its bastard cousin, why. Only the facts ma'am. But why? + +She began to notice the gaps in Waiben's notes more than the notes themselves. It was the first sign of trouble, but at the time Claire simply thought Waiben was being too clinical, never she noticed, recording how something tasted or whether a particular dish had a pleasing assortment of color, how much he had been craving a particular food, a rare hanger steak for instance, something Claire frequently found herself craving. Nor did he record details about the room around him, the color dishes, which lights were on, the candles burning of the table, whether the sunset was still filtering in the picture windows in the back of the house or if it were dark whether or not the moon was visible through the curtains in the dining room. Claire set about to, as best she could correct these oversights in her own recordings, giving them, she imagined, a more readable touch, something more than simple facts, though she did consider that perhaps such descriptions could be facts, records of how a room looked, impressions on her mind yes, words she filtered, formulated and strung together, different perhaps than the words another might have chosen, but facts for her nonetheless. Subjective facts, Waiben called them. The facts of your own impressions which were, at the time, all you had. It was only in hindsight, through historical artifacts like writing that it was possible to combine words, images, photographs, descriptions, paintings, video, surveillance footage and the rest into some sort of collectively agreed upon objectivity. There was nothing in the actual moment save you and your own impressionistic facts. + +Claire found this realization troubling at first. Waiben did not. He seemed perfectly at ease with the idea that everyone was recording something different, billions of highly refined cameras with incredibly sophisticated lens and highly evolved processing software each trapped in its own infinite loop of unknowing. The real knowing he said coyly, comes from those who trust their facts, but never completely. Claire found the statement deliberately obtuse, but later, when she began to meditate it made more sense. She found, as Waiben already had (though in his case it was with LSD), that there were two observers, one personal and trapped, and another that was neither. The man over the horizon Waiben called it. To Claire it seemed more like a source of what many people call the soul, a thing outside of, but intertwined with, everyone, like a voice just over the horizon, calling her name, though like most Claire had not yet found the courage to follow it. Not that the brain would be damaged or anything permanently altered in her body, but that some things once seen cannot be unseen and the perspectives gained from such sights might have an impact on your outlook, on how you lived your life that led in a direction you did not think you wanted to go. + +The battle between the essence and the personality, Waiben called it. He being a proponent of following the leads, going past the line and damn hell and high water, let's see what's out there people, a speech Claire found incredibly naive for the forty-eight year old man who, in any case, had ceased his own self-experimentations in the drug realm before Claire had even been born. Not that the drugs themselves had changed much, though Waiben swore the pot was stronger, but the world, the set and setting had certainly taken a turn for the worse. Waiben shrugged it off, the world has always been ending, ask anyone in history he said wryly one night, sipping Malbec by the pool, she dangling her feet in the water, watching the undulating light in the bottom of the pool. Okay, she thought, but what if eventually they're right? How long can we go on with the sneaking suspicion that the world is ending before it turns out we're right? Even worse what if our beliefs are in fact bringing the end of the world closer, because we believe in it, it begins to believe in itself? + +Recalling it now, as Waiben fiddled with his servers and agents behind the desk, only made Claire want to write down her reflections upon reflections in the little black leather book that was forever in her bag, but she restrained herself. She was thinking about the stack of notebooks in the back of her closet at the apartment in New York, she had not reread them in several years, did not want to revisit everything, preferring in the end to use the recording as way to put it all to rest, the exact opposite of what she had imagined herself using them for when she was actually writing them. + +She found herself thinking about one of the last fights she and Waiben ever had, she was already packing her bags, grabbing her clothes out of the dresser in their shabby Indian apartment and shoving them in worn out backpack. He had moved past pleading into yelling and she retaliated by telling him he had hypergraphia, and out to seek a doctor, not a guru or a collider, but a goddamn doctor that can straighten your fucking egotistical head trip out from the reality the rest of us are fucking living in... it had shut him up at least, but then she looked up from her bag and saw the look of pain in his eyes, saw that he knew she was not just g him, but abandoning him, abandoning them, abandoning the private world they had lived in for so long, just the two of them, a little battle hardened unit against the world, the unseen support on which everything depended, abandoning him in it, alone in a private world that no one else could ever enter, stuck forever or forced to likewise leave it behind. She felt herself falter, it was the moment at which Claire saw with absolute clarity how she could choose right now, right here, in this singular moment between two entirely different lives and for a moment she almost stayed, but she knew deep down that he was right about one thing, damn hell and high water, she was pushing on. She picked up a clay statue of Ganesh hurled it as his head, grabbed her bag and walked out the door. Until today, it was the last either had seen of each other. + + +-------- + + + +She spent the morning in the kitchen, watching the light in the entryway. The sun streamed through two abstract stained glass windows on either side of the front door and filled the entryway with kaleidoscopic patterns that moved and shifted with the light and made it Claire feel as if she had just stepped into a gothic cathedral. It lent a sense of ceremony to her morning that made it seem more purposeful than it did on the bus ride, which she mainly spent sitting in silence, headphones plugged in, jealous of her fellow passengers and the new immersive goggles that were all the rage. Sometimes she took her headphones off and listened to the people around her talking to unseen entities somewhere in the world behind the glasses. Claire could not afford the googles so she got by with stained glass windows, headphones and jealousy. + +Once the sun had crept higher and reduced the entry windows from the mystical to just pretty colored glass, + +-------- + +That day was also the result of a book. One Claire had found on her own in the footnotes of some other book Waiben had left. She went to the library in search of something by Wilhelm Reich, which she found and read nearly breathless. + +That day Waiben made excuses for himself, to himself, to his colleagues. He came home early. He came home early to see her because that day the morning was no longer enough. That day he wanted more. + +That day Claire made excuses to herself. She took off her top and lay in the sun feeling risque and thinking about Reich, about Waiben, about time, about time. And then that day he appeared in the afternoon. Long after she had put her clothes back on and come inside, but long before she had ceased to think about him. + +That day she simply asked him if he would like to have sex with her. + +Part of her simply wanted to feel what it was like, part of her wanted something more. + +He was sitting on the couch, she on the floor. The coffee table between them, the green fronds of a fern half-hid her face. They were flirting over Reich. And then she stood up and asked if he wanted to have sex with her. Just like that. + +As was his habit when life confounded him, Waiben said nothing at first. Then something flared in Claire and she moved toward him, planting her hands on his chest and driving him back on the couch. Or perhaps you'd like to wrestle. + +He caught her wrists in his hands and started to push her away, but she simply twisted and fell forward, pressing her body against his. He could feel her shirt against his, the thin bones of her wrists in his hands, her breasts pressed against his forearms and he knew it was over. + +He tried to turn her over but she resisted now, wrestling him for real, with a strength that he would not have thought she had, until she ripped her arms free of his grasp, spun him over on his side until he collapsed onto the couch and she lay triumphantly on top of him, breathing hard, but staring down with a defiant look in her eyes that he would never forget. She leaned down and thrust her tongue in his mouth clumsily, groping her way forward like a blind woman. She pulled off her clothes, he his and she climbed astride him as he guided her down onto him. + +They stumbled through it from beginning to end, making it up as they went along, creating a private world just for two. She remembered strange moments. The first time she took him in her mouth, the softness of the skin on his penis, the slight rasp of his tongue between her legs, the way smell of sex mingled with the lingering smell of refried beans still on the stove, the moment she realized that they could do it again. And again. Forever. + +She remembered writing about it later, trying to record all the sensations, the feelings that defied words and in the end deciding that, for her, sex was like discovering the world's best game and she was angry that no one had told her the world's best game existed. She had of course known that sex existed, but she had no idea and nothing she had ever heard or seen regarding sex would have led her to believe that it was the world's best game. Yet it was clearly was. It reminded her of the first time she had eaten mushrooms and decided that she simply must live in the psychedelic world of mushrooms for the rest of her life, the only difference being that when she woke up the next day she changed her mind about the mushrooms, but she never did change her mind about sex. It was still definitely the world's best game. Assuming you did it right, which as far as Claire knew she had. But then she started to think that perhaps, if sex was the world's best game, then she out to learn more about it, see how big the board was, what the different pieces could do, learn the hacks, tricks and discover any still-secret levels that she might want to open up. + + + + + +TK continue in this vien until we hit the part where they travel to India, then drop in the prospector thing and tie it together with tucson, claire's interest in yoga, etc. + + + + +All the while Waiben worked on finding a new home for the collider he still hoped to build, despite the death of his colleague and the loss of the site in Japan. The reorganization of government meant that there were no federal grants left. The collapse of the banking system and the subsequent seizure of the Federal Reserve had sent the moneyed elite scurrying for cover, many moving off shore, to the more stable economies in Eastern Europe, China and India. No one had any interest in such a colossal project of very dubious financial value and, given the astronomical odds against succeeding, not even the promise of controlling a potentially unlimited source of energy was enough to entice the once powerful bankers into backing anything so risky. + + +When Nadar was elected president, Waiben's forutnes changed. Somewhere in the middle of promises that he would reign in the people's movement, restore order to the economy and remold America as a land of producers, Waiben's project found its way to the president's desk. Waiben suspected it was the result of some clerical error, a secretary spilled coffee on the paper that should have been sent in with the morning breifings was ruined and in her haste she had simply plucked Waiben's out of the stack and sent it instead. However it happened, Nadar took to the project and flew Waiben to D.C. post haste and explained to the good doctor that his collider was to the space project of the decade, something to capture the public imagination Nadar said. Waiben simply nodded and then found himself flying back and forth to Washington for most of the next year. Later, in the wake of the riots, when Nadar moved the presidency to New York Waiben began to wonder if the promised money would ever materialize. There was talk in the halls, when Waiben walked by voices dropped to whisper. He knew that something much larger than him was happening all around him, but he had never cared for politics, considered it simply a bad hangover from early primate territory games. He did however have presense of mind to notice that he had thrown is lot in with a rather dangerous seeming crowd. by then he no longer cared and of course, even if he had he would have been powerless to do anything about. Waiben loathed Nadar, loathed the fact that he needed him, loathed the fact that if he succeeded the bastard would control what might be the most powerful tool in the known world -- a tiny little sun locked underneath an endlessly sunny desert. After six months of hounding, proposal and counter proposals Waiben finally caved to the government's demands and the money began to flow. +spent his time wandering the cold metal world of the city thinking, with alarming frequency, that he missed the smell of her. + + + +It went on for three years, playing out not unlike the Nabokov novel that Waiben now rounded up and destroyed in the fireplace, a ceremonial act he preformed with some drama the night after her eighteenth birthday. + +The affair began normally enough, just as Waiben had envisioned it so many times in his head, but then it began to spinning away from him and eventually away from her... +In the center the collider grew, their offspring, burrowing into a desert womb... a monstrous creature of tubing and pipe, enough copper wires to fund a small nation, not to mention the liquid hydrogen which was plentiful enough to put the better part of Tucson in cryogenic suspension ... the myriad ancillary gear and tools -- compressors, ventilation equipment, control electronics, even entire refrigeration plants. The tunnel itself was 24 miles in circumference, and lay some five hundred feet beneath the earth, encased in granite and laced with magnets, drawing everything toward itself, so powerful even gravity would collapse in its depths -- the finite made infinite. Not made, revealed, as she had revealed to him... the finite always more than the historical artifacts we take it for, the line tilted on its axis to reveal a circle, observations made and then demarkations drawn in the settling dust of aftermath. There are however markers in the present, gut rumblings, a nebulous feeling of inevitable doom that dogs many from their earliest years, portending *something* -- some indistinct, cloudy something, which was no less real, no less *happening* for its vagueness. Instincts, insights, flashes that reveal too much, too fast, leaving behind a seared in vision but nothing on which to pin the impending dread, that nonetheless are the only distant early warnings available before the historians return to sweep up the dust and debris into tidy printable pages for children to pour over. + +Claire saw the end long before Waiben, saw him disappear into the game she had invented, saw him disappear into the collider, the peculiar male fixation of building despite the obviousness that decay always wins, in this dimension and most likely all others. Nothing can really be destroyed, nothing can ever disappear, only change forms to something indistinguishable from nothing. And even the change was deceptive, something perceived more through the flaws in the observation than any real change, at the quantum level very little changed, save in the center of the sun, or the center of the collider, where atoms would turn to something beyond atoms. She began to withdraw from him, to let him go and he, despite the warnings all round him, the missed dinners, the nights out with friends, even the fire dying out in her eyes, could not see or refused to see -- even now she was not sure -- that there could be only one ending. + +It started as Waiben began to gain some notoriety, as the project picked up speed and money he began to appear on the news broadcasts, installed I2 feed, and Claire began to question it, to question him about the colossally arrogant waste of money in a world that was, perceptibly now, coming apart at the seams, but what better way to tear it limb from limb, my dear, to ensure the total destruction and rebirth ... so long as it was being built anyway... may as well answer some questions so we can all move on now folks ... might as well take it for a spin, no? So now... what the hell *does* happen to gravity when a particle is obliterated? Only Waiben and Nadar really cared, and only Claire really understood. + +The locals didn't give a damn, which bought Waiben some time with the pitchfork and torches crowd. The collider served its purpose in their eyes -- created jobs, drew in investors, turned Tucson into a thriving example of American ingenuity in the midst of chaos, cults and failure. But Waiben had overheard whispers around the staid university about the, "er, dear me, how do I say this..." the *nature* of some of the recent arrivals, drawn to the collider, to the jobs, to the thriving oasis in the desert like moths to a roaring camp fire, only to end up ashes blowing right back out, gray dust drifting off into the night air. Lately there had even been a few scraggly suspicious looking types with placards announcing the inevitable end of the world... It began to turn Tucson into the modern day equivalent of vaudevillian circus side show. Wild-eyed, but more or less taciturn physicists were the first to arrive, a semi-suspect collection of characters that began turning up late at night slurping espressos in elbow-patched tweed. Many such characters wandered the stacks of the university library in a caffeine-induced haze, pulling down old tomes, flipping the pages without reading a word and then returning them to their spot on the shelves and again wandering the halls purposefully trying to look purposeless, hoping vainly that they might bump into someone, perhaps Stanslivski or even the Hungarian, Dacha Mailfay, rumored to be in town consulting on the finer points of universe creation... + +As time passed the locals began to sense a slight variation among the scientists invading their previously seldom noticed city -- mathematicians began to arrive in droves, with the ill-kept hairdos popularized by their demigods Feynmann and Einstein. Even those with little interest in the outcome of the collider flocked in right alongside fervent, even worshipful, believers that the math must be put to the test. Their enthusiasm percolated slowly, building throughout the cold winter until it reached a sort of fever pitch at the beginning of April, just a week before Claire decided she had had enough, enough of Waiben, enough of the collider, enough of the desert and so hitched a ride east, eventually jumping down from a big rig cab door into the muggy July of New Orleans where she finally found something that felt like home. + +But behind her in the west where the sun never sets, Tucson continued to grow and spasm with the influx of engineers, construction contracts of a size and magnitude no one had witnessed in decades, enough money to lend the entire city more than a little hint of good old wild west danger, the likes of which locals had not seen since the wild and wooly days of uranium prospecting nearly a half century earlier. And of course with the scientists -- generally still able, despite their enthusiasm for the mathematical satisfaction of literally seeing particles smashed off into any one of the now confirmed 26 other dimensions, were, so long as they stayed out of the cantinas and taco stands where the cheap Mexican imports flowed like cocaine over the border, generally a very sober and serious lot -- came the more enthusiastic, the starry eyed mystics talking of the Deity and the dimensional possibilities... where God might truly be found. The hundreds of crystal sellers and heavy metal seekers down from the north with every variety of calcite, pyrite and complete novella-length explanations of why you must, simply must have a Agate or at least, god, you don't even own a dinosaur fossil? Here just take it, take it, I don't even believe this stuff, mainly a hustler really, leaning in with conspiratorial smiles and the faint scent of whisky hanging from bearded chins, but even I can't bear to see someone with no, absolutely no way to draw on the compressed, compacted, and therefore endlessly potent, power of geologic energy.... + +The alien ship greaters were always the last to arrive, requiring some time to detect more earthly concerns like the fact that all their crystal vendors seemed to have mysteriously decamped Sedona and headed somewhere else, where probably there was also a good chance of the mother ship popping up, unpredictable as it was. Come to find, this lot did, that the mother of all dimensional openings was being constructed right here in Tucson, libel to just spit out some sort of hexahedral multi-dimensional craft chock full of little green men probably just seconds after it went on line... + +For the locals he only real plus to the maelstrom of weirdness that had descend on Tucson was the auxiliary support, the pick ax vendors of old, tagging along behind the miners, keen to make a real profit and well versed in the sorts of goods that everyone, starry-eyed mystics on up the line, had some use for, like taco trucks come all the way from Los Angeles, a flood of out of town cab drivers (finally no waiting for a cab on a Saturday night, almost like New York Claire had marveled walking out of the airport terminal), musicians, bands that had previously never considered making the drive to Tucson began to pour in, playing gigs in whatever wayward bar would have them and bringing naturally a flood of new and much higher quality drugs and willing dealers along with them. + +It was in the latter that Claire sought refuge, out of the proper world of atoms and the sting of the whip into something more tangibly beyond, no waiting for particles to collide, no multi-billion dollar investments, just a drop or two of this on the tongue, there you are now dear ... until the day she had jumped in the car with a couple of peyote dealers headed for Texas and disappeared. + + + +------------- + + +So Claire began a new routine: dress for school, get on the school bus as she always had, though now her backpack included a change of clothes and a bathing suit. Once at the school walk down to Prince Avenue where she would catch the 17 bus downtown and then transfer to the 105X which took her up Swan where she would, on occasion see Waiben in an identical bus, southbound for the University. From Swan the bus turned left onto Sunrise, then Skyline and into the foothills beyond. From the last stop it was a ten minute walk to Waiben's house, which she would open with the key he had given her. + + +---------- + +The day sucked in on itself, a collapsing uncertainty, like so many passenger pigeons, broken-winged and exhausted, returning home on foot. + +------------ + + +, and Claire already knew it wouldn't matter what the band sounded like, or wished themselves to sound like, since, at their best, most of these recently arrived musical nomads were just nascent sonic ideas, hatched by children, unsure yet of what shapes and forms the hungers they felt would take in the world around them; unsure even of what the hunger might be, only that they salivated even when the bell did not ding anymore, when no time was marked, no passage given, no launch attended, waking only to find themselves at sea, tiny paper boats tossed in the ocean of sound ... + + +--------- + +The marker for Claire was much clearer, a tattered notebook she found on Waiben's deskt on day when he had come home early to watch the world series. It was an ordinary spiral bound notebook, curled and creased with use, hand drawn tables on each page noting what seemed like food, but was interspersed with random snippets of equations and occasionally what looked like computer code. What is this she asked, holding up the notebook while Waiben hunched over his monitor watching the game. Huh? Oh, that's my food database. Your what? It's a food database. What is that? Waiben sighed and looked up from the game for a minute. It's everything I'v eaten for the last five years. Actually that notebook is just one year but there are some others over there on the shelf. What's the point? Waiben looked exasperated, but said simply, it's a record of the what that produces the why. What? Claire, have you ever had a brilliant idea? Uhm. Of course you have. Haven't you ever wished you could have more brilliant ideas? Yes. Well, I wanted more brilliant ideas too, like you father Claire, he swore brilliance came from peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Well, I tried that, it didn't work for me. So I started keeping track of everything I ate to see if there was some connection between any brilliant ideas and what I had eaten that day. Was there? Of course. If there wasn't we wouldn't be having this conversation. He turned back to the screen and mumbled, they aren't very interesting, but if you want, feel free to read it. + +She did, finding herself variously fascinated and appalled by the notebooks, which, perhaps more than anything else in hindsight, had piqued her curiosity about Waiben as an actual person, more than just a link to her lost father. Her fascination with the food notebooks lay in the simple act of doing, that you could in fact record in minute detail everything you ate. Previously Claire had not considered this within the realm of things you could do. It deeply offended her teenage sensibilities about freedom, priorities and the seemingly grave importance of only doing things that mattered, but it was yet another thing to be added to the list of things you could do. In the end, at least with the food notebooks, she ended up giving in to her curiosity and began to record her own eating habits, starting, as Waiben suggested in a card attached to the chartreuse spiral bound notebook she found wrapped up just inside the front door one morning, without changing her existing eating patterns, simply noting what she ate and how she felt after eating, if she did in fact feel anything noticeable at all. And she did. Feel that is. Eventually the Cokes and Twizzlers, which she noticed on rereading her notebook often made her briefly alert, but then sluggish and inclined to napping in the sun, were replaced with more fruit, water and occasional cups of tea. She began to read with greater intensity, particularly her father's rather confusing books on physics. She noticed she spent far less time staring off at the Catalina mountains, less time by the pool even, and more time at the table, books spread out before her, taking notes and recapitulating much of what she was reading. Looking back on it, it was fairly obvious that Waiben had essentially tricked her into going to college, his own private college, with its rather strange curriculum, equal parts fiction and non, imaginative and mundane, a college where the main curriculum seemed to be her, or her understanding of herself, which, she realized later is perhaps the most difficult thing in the world to study, the one thing that no one else can possibly understand, the you that is you, separating the innate from the personality, the personalities from each other, digging deeper and deeper until you where swimming in depths where the light was so faint, gravity so weak that it was easy to loose track of which was up, which down and where, if anywhere, you might have been headed. So much easier then the simply stare into the mirror and think that perhaps somewhere in that other world, in that other pale skin turned brown there were all the possibilities already played out, simply there in all their splender rady to chosen if only, if only the mirror would mimic you, would show you some path, but there was nothing just the back night air, the warm water that surrounds you with uncertainity. + +But the beginning was nothing but wonder and astonishment. So pleased with the her food notebook experiment and the resulting dietary experiments, Claire began to experiment on herself in other ways and kept detailed notes about what happened. She accidentally became a prolific writer, expanding from simple food databases to more elaborate journals about what she was reading and what she was thinking. She wasn't entirely sure that she understood herself any better because of it, but she began to notice things she had never seen before, patterns that surrounded her, patterns of eating, patterns in books, patterns in thoughts, patterns in the light in the entry way, patterns in the rugs upstairs, patterns in the rippling of the swimming pool. She even began to notice a pattern in the books left on the table for her to read. Three months into what was to become her longest running experiment, yoga, she realized that soon after she had begun her food experiment Waiben had left the first edition translation of the Yoga Sutras. That she moved from food to Yoga seemed so natural at the time, it wasn't until later that she saw Waiben's hand guiding her. It made her wonder what it was he wanted. + +It was the same answer she had always had, no. She said no to school, eventually she said no to Waiben and she always said no to the desert, though she would not, when things first started, had thought of it that way. The closest she came to no for a long time was its bastard cousin, why. Only the facts ma'am. But why? + +She began to notice the gaps in Waiben's notes more than the notes themselves. It was the first sign of trouble, but at the time Claire simply thought Waiben was being too clinical, never she noticed, recording how something tasted or whether a particular dish had a pleasing assortment of color, how much he had been craving a particular food, a rare hanger steak for instance, something Claire frequently found herself craving. Nor did he record details about the room around him, the color dishes, which lights were on, the candles burning of the table, whether the sunset was still filtering in the picture windows in the back of the house or if it were dark whether or not the moon was visible through the curtains in the dining room. Claire set about to, as best she could correct these oversights in her own recordings, giving them, she imagined, a more readable touch, something more than simple facts, though she did consider that perhaps such descriptions could be facts, records of how a room looked, impressions on her mind yes, words she filtered, formulated and strung together, different perhaps than the words another might have chosen, but facts for her nonetheless. Subjective facts, Waiben called them. The facts of your own impressions which were, at the time, all you had. It was only in hindsight, through historical artifacts like writing that it was possible to combine words, images, photographs, descriptions, paintings, video, surveillance footage and the rest into some sort of collectively agreed upon objectivity. There was nothing in the actual moment save you and your own impressionistic facts. + +Claire found this realization troubling at first. Waiben did not. He seemed perfectly at ease with the idea that everyone was recording something different, billions of highly refined cameras with incredibly sophisticated lens and highly evolved processing software each trapped in its own infinite loop of unknowing. The real knowing he said coyly, comes from those who trust their facts, but never completely. Claire found the statement deliberately obtuse, but later, when she began to meditate it made more sense. She found, as Waiben already had (though in his case it was with LSD), that there were two observers, one personal and trapped, and another that was neither. The man over the horizon Waiben called it. To Claire it seemed more like a source of what many people call the soul, a thing outside of, but intertwined with, everyone, like a voice just over the horizon, calling her name, though like most Claire had not yet found the courage to follow it. Not that the brain would be damaged or anything permanently altered in her body, but that some things once seen cannot be unseen and the perspectives gained from such sights might have an impact on your outlook, on how you lived your life that led in a direction you did not think you wanted to go. + +The battle between the essence and the personality, Waiben called it. He being a proponent of following the leads, going past the line and damn hell and high water, let's see what's out there people, a speech Claire found incredibly naive for the forty-eight year old man who, in any case, had ceased his own self-experimentations in the drug realm before Claire had even been born. Not that the drugs themselves had changed much, though Waiben swore the pot was stronger, but the world, the set and setting had certainly taken a turn for the worse. Waiben shrugged it off, the world has always been ending, ask anyone in history he said wryly one night, sipping Malbec by the pool, she dangling her feet in the water, watching the undulating light in the bottom of the pool. Okay, she thought, but what if eventually they're right? How long can we go on with the sneaking suspicion that the world is ending before it turns out we're right? Even worse what if our beliefs are in fact bringing the end of the world closer, because we believe in it, it begins to believe in itself? + + +----------------- + +We seek it wherever we go, we seek until we become, even in our own homes, tourists, simply passing through in search of something else, some dark mass that only grows more confusing the close we come to it. + +---------------- + +old end to ethan and claire + + + + + + + + +Ethan we have to go. + +What? Wait a minute I want more coffee. Now Claire hissed, tossing money to the man behind the cash register and not bothering with change. She grabbed Ethan by the jacket collar and pulled him up out of the booth. + +What the fuck Claire? They stood outside the restaurant as another pair of fighters roared overhead. + +We need to leave. Now. + +What? Why? I mean... + +Are you coming? + +Where are we going? + +Claire was already walking down the street. We need to get to the base in the next 15 minutes. + +What base? What are you talking about? + +The Air Force base. + +Is that where the plane museum is? Ethan was runing to catch up with her. + +It's near there. + +Isn't that on the other side of Tucson? + +Yeah. + +there's no way... + +I know, but I have to try. + +We don't even have a car... + +Claire was trying to door of every car she passed. Two blocks from the diner a door opened. She got in. + +What are you doing? + +Trying to steal this car... + +Shit. He ran around and climbed in the passenger's side. Do you know how to start this thing? + +It's a stick, Claire said testily as she released the emergency brake. + +It's a piece of shit. + +Yes, but we can push it and it will start. She opened the door and climbed out, keeping one hand on the wheel to steer it out the parking space. Ethan climbed out the other side and they began to push. After a few minutes they had it out of the parking space and rolling down Tucson Boulevard. Once it had a bit of speed Claire jumped in and popped the clutch. The car lurched, coughed and died. They did it twice more before the engine finally turned over. + +The both ducked back in the car and Claire floored it. + +Do you think this is a good idea? + +What stealing a car? + +No. I know that's not a good idea. I mean driving toward an Air Force base. I mean, there are a lot of planes taking off, he twisted his head to look out the top of the windshield as two more fighters passed overhead. I'm assuming that all these planes, which seem to have missiles hanging from their wings, means the something, um, threatening and scary is going on and yet, you want to drive *toward* an Air Force base. Seems like they might not react well to that... + +That's a possibility. Claire ran a red light and Ethan hurriedly fastened his seatbelt. So are you going to tell me why we need to leave. + +My friend left me a message, he said he was leaving right now. + +And who is this friend of yours, an Air Force pilot or something? + +Not exactly no. + +Then what the hell is he doing at an... + +Does the name Waiben mean anything to you? + +You mean like Dr Waiben? Sorta crazy guy that built the collider and might be trying to end the world? + +Well, yeah, that's him, but he isn't trying to end the world. Or at least I don't think he is... + +Oh, fucking great. I feel so much better now that I absolutely know this is a terrible idea... + +They raced down the freeway, weaving in and out of cars. As they got closer to Davis Monthan more planes began taking off, much bigger planes. Planes even Claire recognized as bombers. And in the middle of them they noticed a private twin engine jet lift off and promptly break off to the east. + +That was him wasn't it? + +Claire didn't answer. She was looking off to the west, at the gap between the mountains where the freeway headed west toward LA. There was a thin trail of smoky cloud lifting up into the sky, so skinny, so frail from her vantage point on the freeway, but so clearly and distinctly mushroom shaped. And then behind it she noticed another, and another. + +Jesus. + +Ethan followed her gaze. Is that what it looks like? + +I don't know but if it is... + +If it is, we need to get the fuck out of here. + +Claire pulled to the side of the road and they got out of the car. A few hundred feet ahead of them a truck stopped and two men climbed out of the cab looking west. + +Ethan was using his hand as a visor, squinting in the afternoon sun. That's an atomic bomb cloud. I mean, that's how they look in movies. + +Suddenly Claire understood, that was the shock wave... + +Shit. + +Shit. + +Where you do think it's coming from? + +I don't know... there's nothing out there... Yuma's south, San Bernardino is north of that, it almost looks like... She turned to Ethan. It must be LA. + +Well fuck me. How long to you think we have? + +Have for what? + +Before the radiation and everything gets here... + +Christ, I have no idea. I mean it takes 8 hours to drive it... so if the radiation is in the atmosphere... is that how it works...? + +How the fuck would I know? + +Well, I guess we don't have much time then. + +We should get going then, once people realize... + +It'll be a mess. + +Where do we go? + +I dunno. South? + +Where is the jet stream right now? + +Claire just stared at him. + +South sound good to you? + +Claire nodded. We need food, canned stuff. Some clothes. + +Okay, rob a store or something? + +I was thinking my grandmother's house, but maybe a gun would be good... + +A gun? Okay. Do you have a gun? + +No. + +Well, let's get the food and we'll go from there. + +They drove in silence, each scanning the streets to see what was happening, but so far no one seemed to have noticed the cloud, off the elevated freeway it was difficult to see, still too low on the horizon and hidden by the mountains. Claire fiddled with the radio but it was dead, the entire FM band silent. + +At her grandmother's house Claire grabbed her barely unpacked bags and threw them in the trunk of the car while Ethan emptied the cupboards into trash bags. Claire took a last look around before she closed the door behind her, not bothering to lock it. + +They were driving down Prince Ave headed for the freeway when they saw the first military convoy pulling off the exit to the left of them. Claire floored it and slipped under the freeway grabbing the frontage road on the other side. They skimmed the freeway for ten minutes, running red lights the whole way. Once they were well on the east side town Claire finally got on interstate 10. + +You know what'll be hilarious? Ethan lit a cigarette and cracked the window. + +What? + +If it turns out we're wrong and we just stole a car, emptied out your grandmother's house and hit the road for absolutely no reason at all. + +Claire smiled in spite of herself. + +-------------- + + +Claire background (add to meeting drummer scene) + + + only that she had lived for so long alternating between a steady diet of music theory to hone her classical cello playing skills and Physics which she had fallen into through the very bookshelves just out reach now, downstairs. The final answer to her singular fascination with the blurred image of a cat-gut string in vibration, which had first somehow cast its spell over her after her dear departed father had given her her first instrument -- an old uekele bought for next to nothing during a stopover in hawaii just one year before he and her mother had perished off the coast of Japan. But the end had come far before Waiben was able to stop it, set in motion by a simple question, what if we are really gaussian blurs, vibrating like strings, reshaping, texturing and layering in the very same way that cello can transcend time and bring back the dead. A notion which sent her music teacher into paroxial fits of rage, metaphors are not science, nor are they music. + + +TK + + + + + +Claire had run straight from what she had called home since her parents died when she was twelve, to the one man her grandmother blamed for their death. By the time Claire left Tucson for good three years later, her only living relative had cut her off completely. + +Claire was never sure how, but one day, two years after leaving, a letter found her dilapidated brownstone in the far reaches of Brooklyn. She saw Tucson on the return address and her heart leaped, thinking it might be him, but it wasn't, it was her. Not an apology, more knowing than an apology, the letter had given her pause, made her wonder for a fleeting instance how much her grandmother knew... not apology, an understanding that even now nothing had healed, that the wounds were as fresh as the day Claire had turned her back on him, knowing he was not a monster, worse, he had found the monster in her. But the letter had a phone number and after a month of debate Claire summoned the courage to call it. Her voice sounded frail through the telephone wires. They spoke haltingly at first, clipping each other's sentences, but then her grandmother began to tell Claire stories of her parents, picnics in the desert, the Neil Diamond records her grandmother played to lull Claire to sleep when her parents were away in Japan. She even spoke of the crash, the phone call, the officers at the doorstep, the funeral in Los Angeles, stories of events Claire had been too young to understand. + + + + +static electicity scene to go with waking up with the drummer in a cheap motel room: + +shuffled her feet across the room, past the enormous bed, up behind Waiben and touched his earlobe, unleashing the static charge with a marvelous blue spark that yielded and yelp and a jump. + +Damn you... + +Sorry, couldn't help myself. She flopped down on the couch, maintaining an arms length distance between their bodies since she had not yet decided how the evening would end. + + + +cuts from Waiben and Claire's meeting after the funeral: + +She occupied herself by the pool, swimming when the spring heat required, but mainly reading his books, jumping randomly about from physics books, Kurtzwell, Feynman, Einstein to psychology, and other physicists she knew from her father's conversations, carefully, though not necessarily consciously, avoiding her father's own books, some of which were co-authored by Waiben but which he had already tucked away in corner shelves, keeping them away from her immediate attention. When she grew tired of cosmology she journeyed upstairs to the library where Russian novels held her attention for an entire summer, her pale skin turned a dark brown beside the pool, drinking Coke through Twizzlers and following Dostoyevsky through the tormented religious debates of a crumbling Russian society, chasing Tolstoy across frozen landscapes so different than the one that surrounded her it might as well have been the moon. + + + + + +cuts about claire's past: + + A sympathic music teacher in high school, thoroughly sick of her endless questions about the nature and behavior of that vibration had gently suggested she ask the physics teach who had simply shrugged and handed her a book on string theory. Of course then String theory fell out of favor in favor of the more promising comprehensive theory of everything which, though it certain sounded intriguing, Claire was disappointed to learn had little if anything to say about things that vibrated and was consequently of little interest. Still she had discovered at the fine institution of the University of Arizona that there were in fact a few string theorists still hanging about, talking quitely at tables in the quad. They may have looked like survivors desperate to find any scrap of hope or some news from a homeland they feared had been forever decimated by the damnable everything, that precense so all-encompassing that it left little room for what was left of their own visions carefully preserved now in memories of vibrating strings expanding and compacting in kind of musical harmony visible only to those with the ear for it, their secret reduced not to ashes, but discredited as a secret not worth keeping, not worth digging for, like the little glass jars Claire had found digging in the yard as a child which, to her great disappointment, turned out to be not message bottles left over from the time when Arizona had been an ocean floor, but simply cast off junk, soda bottles discarded by careless workers, buried in the sands of the desert, the glass glazed and softened by wind, water and time, all of which, + + +nother graf about the grandmother + +Some where in the middle of the lightening and rain and creosote smells, Claire's grandmother, took her own life, largely, Claire suspected, out of bordem, not to say that her life was boring, rather that she was, after a respectable one hundred years, simply feeling as though she had overstayed what might be considered a polite amount of time. Later claire would significantly amend that judgment, but at the time it offered some amount of comfort, which was more recently helped along by two muscle relaxers she had found in the bathroom cabinet of what was now, according to a young bespecalled gentleman in a too-tight cheap blue suit, who claimed to be her grandmother's attorney, her house. At the time it had seemed like a good idea, the muscle relaxers that is, but now she found herself somewhat confused and, if it were possible, lost in a strange house. + +Back out in the main living room area a significant crowd of people claiming to be her grandmother's friends were milling about, talking in subdued whispers, shaking their heads and generally behaving very funereal, which, were any of them really close to the mysterious and often aloof Adamina Zindelo, they would, Claire felt, have known that about the last thing the woman would have wanted. + +Claire looked again at the small memorial service card and wondered abscently what her childhood would have been like if her name had been Zindelo. She was momentarily thankful for her father who passed along the more banal Petsha. The small lamenated card had a thin clipping of an obituary in the Tucson Sentinal, not the longer more extensive and some might say scandelous piece in the Sun which dredged up the old rumors of affairs with congressmen and other suspect behaviors that, surely Claire thought, were a bit passe in this day and age of celebrity oil wrestling and holographic sex clubs. The memorial service had been held on the Govenor's estate just outside of town, in the hills beyond the now crumbling remants of old Tucson, a prop set and backdrop for hollywood's never-ending fascination with the wild west that had, to the proreitars dismay, ended. , provided a backdrop for a number of speakers -- none of them Claire -- to wax various degrees of eloquent, heaping enough praise, hackneyed sentiment and banal platuitudes to bury her departed grandmother under a stinking heap of bullshit for all eternity. Claire's grandmother had never been a particularly kind person, not to her and certainly not to most of the people who gathered under the remaining scatter of bruised clouds to send her on her way. Which, as it turned out, they did by maintaining the fakeness and bullshit for one more day, which when Claire got to tthinking about it, was probably entirely appropriate. + +"She introduced me to my husband..." + +"Always gave to the church..." + +"Remembered our family each Christmas..." + +Claire briefly considered leaping up to podium, pushing aside the speakers and screaming off a list of things less savory -- insider trading allegations that never formalized, suspicious wire transfers that might or might not have removed a key tenant holding up a real estate deal, or perhaps mention the open pit mines she had funded, the Uranium prospecting outfit she financed (long since sent to prison for its participation in the incident at Two Guns) or any of the other more colorful parts of document pile Claire had been sifting through ever since the phone had shattered her otherwise peaceful afternoon lying on the couch, underneath a blaneket so soft it seemed made of puppy ears, alternatly reading a book on the history of Mexico and staring out the windows at the wild and wolly spectical of untamed lightening trying its best to fry the sauguro's on the ridgeline behind her appartment building. + + + +So claire also took the easy way, or planned to anyway hoping the muscle relaxers would induce a sort of brain state that would lend itself to fainting and allow her an excuse a avoid mingling with the increasingly hungry vulture-headed crowd is the other room. unfortunately the muscle relaxors ended up being something a little bit different than advertised. + + + + +Old description of the desert: + +In her car the desert rushed by in dull hues of gray sand and rock, surging together in the moonling, lapping at the foothills of Mount Lemmon where the Palo Verde and Mesquite stood out, stark siloettes... Claire could see the now the bark wandering line of the Rialto River, looking like an after thought, an architect’s final over the top push on an otherwise sedate and monochromatic palette, the design committee so adament, we simply must have water, you have got to put water in there somewhere damn it... and so the frustrated and over-worked architect picked up a muddy brown brush and simply drizzled it Pollack-like on the ground, a splattering drip of water that Claire knew she would never be able to look at the same way... + +old trip to tucumcari: + + + + * * * + + +The real strangness held off until Tucumcari, New Mexico, a small collection of 1950s hotels, some slightly more modern fast food chains, gas stations -- an otherwise lackluster community precense congregated like a cyst around the I 40 expressway somewhere just over the Arizona border. + +The Large Hadron Collider was designed to test where gravity goes when particles are smashed and as it turned out, largely discredited string theory because the gravity did not in fact appear to slip into some posited extra dimension, in effect vibrating right out of the string and into the brane the held it in place, but instead appeared to just transfer itself around in this same, rather disappointing universe. But while gravity may have ruined many a physicists passing enchantment with string theory, theoretical mathematicians like Claire were undaunted, they were after all quite accustomed to problems without solutions and had never been particularly interested in gravity to begin with. Most prefered the pure realm of numbers but Claire was more interested in where the maths and strings, like the musical strings that had piqued her interest in the first place intersected with her. Harmonic resonance was her holdout and in that she found a welcome home at the university of arizona which had, ever since the economic collapse in the east become a hotbed of castoff academics, discredited string theoriest and all manner of other castoffs who found themselve unable to produce as their academic oversight committees phrase it and were thus dispatched out of the ahllowed halls and into the larger world where they primarily spent their time searching for new hallowed halls to slip into. So it because a kind of their sceintific gold rush moving westward like the nuclear physics rush to los alamos in the 1940s or the electricty rush to colorodo in the teens only this time it was string theorists and psycologist who made the trek leading to a rather interesting, some might say potent, campus potential into which Claire had innocently wandered some seven years ago. Now approaching the end of her own student career she + + Disappointly none of them seemed to know much of anything about strings beyond the need to periodically change them on their guitars and bases. + +The drummer had elected to travel a day ahead of the others and seemed if not brimming with knowledge to at least show a willingness to listen to Claire talk about strings. + +I thought that the string theory was discredited a while back, something about being untestable + +Claire rolled her eyes. + +that's true she said patiently, but that really only bothers physicists. It works perfectly well as a mathematical framework. In fact if left to the realm of pure math, string theory already is a theory of everything. + +But if you can't test it... + +What if we just aren't looking at the problem the right way? What if we can test it but we aren't going about the right way? We're looking for an empirical way to test it. What if it can only be experienced, not observed. + +Okay. How would it be experienced? + +Maddy took her eyes off the road long enough to shoot Claire a meaningful look that amounted to roughly, stop. now. + +I don't know yet, that's what I'm working on. + +In addition to playing the cello. + +Yes. + +That's quite a little resume you have there, Chas settle back into the back seat and crouched down to light a joint. Does pot help? + +Claire took the prooffered joint and smiled. sometimes, though to really understand string theory we're going to need something stronger. + +What like coke? + +Consider this, strings are tiny, vibrating things that we primarily observe as points or particles right? + +If you say so. + +Well then what happens to the particles as the vibration changes, as we move from say D flat to E? + +You really do study classical music don't you? + +Claire ignored the comment and continued. The answer is, theoretically of course, that the particle changes too. String theory says that any elementary particle should be thought of as a tiny vibrating line, rather than a point. The string can vibrate in different frequencies just as a guitar string can produce different notes, and every frequency appears as a different particle: electron, photon, gluon and so on. What you get is a world where you look at a particle and it has a positive charge say and then the string shifts and poof it has a negative charge. + +Okay. + +No, not okay. That's serious problem. + +Right but didn't Eistien already show the problems with observation and time and all that realativeity business? + +That's right, but this is slightly worse because what we are seeing is actually not at all what is there. It's one thing to say that something is only the thing it is when it's observed, it's a whole other type of problem if what you observe is only the _effect of something else_ happening when you observe it. What you have then is quite a bit like poking your head in Plato's cave and momentarily seeing the shadows. Rather than believing the shadows are the real deal because of a lack of information, you're thinking the shadows are real because you have false information. + +But you have false information in both cases? + +Right, but in the second case you believe your information is correct because it fits with what you expect, that's the worst kind of false information you can have because you have an entire mathmatical model that tells you it's true. + +So string theory means Eistien was wrong? + +No not really, that shadows are still shadow, they behave the same way, they just aren't actually what they appear to be? + +So what's the point of all this? + +Claire though for a minute, opening the glove box and pulling out a cigarette. The point is that, given the theory, assuming for a moment that it's true, it would be possible for to divergent realities to intersect. + +What does that mean? + +Well, for one thing, a lot of the weird shit that happens might not really be that weird. And I guess at the same time it might be far far weirder than we imagine. I mean, on some level if string theory is right all bets are off, there's no telling what it would mean. + +intersection of two separate realities. diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/Sil Intro-india.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/Sil Intro-india.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aff3305 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/Sil Intro-india.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +Sil is lying back on the bed watching the dim glow of an untouched cigarette buring in the ashtray next to him and wondering when he began to smell of sour milk. Another trickle of sweat runs down the side of his neck and pools with the rest on his chest. The thin white mosquito netting wafts slightly from the ineffectual ceiling fan whose white blades glint with the moonlight streaming in from the window. The netting does a far better job of keeping out the breeze than the mosquitos which Sil has long since ceased to swat. +Malaria is not that bad, or at least doesn't seem that bad once you've had Dengue Fever. Or so Scratch said this morning when he brought juice and another round of Malarone, which Sil is convinced is far more debilitating than the actual Malaria. In some ways Scratch is right. Sil's never experienced Dengue ("You'll love it, same sweats plus internal hemoraguing, bleeding gums, bleeding nose, bleeding asshole… god, I thought I was gonna die." Scratch sat down in the chair next to the bed and stared right through Sil for some time before retreating back outside into the morning heat), but so far Malaria isn't much worse that the really bad bout of Measles he had as a child. +But the smell of his body is beginning to worry him. Sour milk at times. Then something more like onion with occasional accents of moldy Stilton. Sil took some comfort in the knowledge that he was beginning to produce the olfactory bouquet of nineteenth century France, but at night, when the shivers and fever had draind the humor out of him he knew on some level that he smelled like death. Perhaps not death. The approach of death. Like the curious smell of a cow Sil had once seen, bloated, dying in the streets of Jaisalmer, its intestines a tangle of the plastic bags and Dixie cups Indians were forever throwing to the side of the road where half starved animals scarfed them down. Or it could be that he's finally begun to absorb the smell of the jungle lurking all around their half-constructed base camp of moldy canvas tents and clap board shacks that hardly slowed the decent of the relentless afternoon rains. +The Indians Scratch had hired to help in their endeavor had taken to avoiding Sil, going so far as to move around the primiter of the camp so as to avoid passing by him in the mornings when he sat on the ground in the shade leaning against the shack, but always unsure if he were sweating from fever or just the endless heat. One day he spent several hours dropping an unlit cigarette from his knee and became half convinced that he could tell it fell slower here than he remembered, as if the humidity might somehow have a palpable effect on the powers of gravity. diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/Sil and Dean in NO.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/Sil and Dean in NO.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..433ce42 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/Sil and Dean in NO.txt @@ -0,0 +1,258 @@ +The city was quite, Sil pulled into the alley behind his house and killed the engine. What do we do with her? + +Dean glanced at Katje and shrugged. Put her up here I guess. I'll figure something out. + +Sil nodded and rolled down the window to light a cigarette. How much time to we have. + +Dean glanced at his watch. About two hours I think. you hungery? + +sil contemplated what sort of person would be able to eat right now and then relutantly admitted that he was hungry. i could eat. + +I'll get something. but Dean didn't move. Do you still know how to sail? + +Sil coughed, choking on smoke. Sail? Jesus Dean. + +I'm serious. + +Sil shrugged. I guess so. I mean I was never all that great to begin with. + +Well, starting remembering what you know. + +Where the fuck are we going to get a boat? + +There's one coming to get us. + +What? + +Well, technically it's coming to get me. But I think probably it's the safest place for Katje at the moment. + +So what does that have to do with me? + +You're going to join us later. + +Later? + +There's something I need you to do. + +Okay + +You need to retrieve someone from the Protectorate. + +Sil spun his head around to facce Dean. Are you fucking crazy? There's no way I can go back up that river after today and there's no way anyone is going to want me to after this. + +It's not up the river. + +What? + +It's more complicated. + +No shit. + +You're going in by air. + +Oh. Oh no I am not. I do not fly. + +I know. Dean sighed. But you have to. Sil half turned to ash his cigarette out the window and felt a faint prick in his neck, he spun around what the... but Dean had already pulled out the needle and was putting the cap back on. + +I'm sorry Sil, but you have to do this. And I know you have to file so... + +You're a real fucking asshole you know that, his head lulled to side. Dean grabbed his head in his hand and slapped him lightly on the face. Remember Sil, remember how to sail goddamn it. Otherwise we're going to fucking die. + + + + + + + + +Sils, she's the single most valuablife and you left her just sitting there? + +Look man, I don't have the regualr income, the well places friends, whatever the fuck else you have. I'm selling mayhaw jelly at the fucking market to get by at the moment, forgive me if i have more immediate concerns than looking after arbella. + +Well now you do. + +how do you mean? + +My employer somehow or other put toww and two together and relized that you were, well who you were and that we were friends. which is why i'm here. + +i'd already surmised it wasn't a friendly visti. + +i take offense to that Sil. It is a friendly visit. and we're going to be seeing a whole lot more of each other, whether you like it or not. + +Arbella? + +Exactly. + +So how does that fit with your employer? + +He would like you to go back over the fence and extract someone. + +Ectract? + +if it makes you feel any better the someone is actually painfully beautiful. + +he wants me to go back over the fence. is he fucking deranged? do youu have any idea what they'll do to me if i get caught. + +probably, but i'm not sure that's a huge concern of his + +well it's a pretty big concern of mine. + +i know, but trust me, he wouldn't send you if he didn't think you could do it. + +well that's encouraging, some fucking demigod your work for thinks i can do it. christ i feel a lot better now. what's in it for me anyway? + +you can stop picking fucking berries for a living. + +i already know i can stop that, let's be specific shall we? + +Name your price, is a direct quote. + +How about this, i go get this person for him. For the rest of my life, no matter how much money i want, i call him and he get's it to me within 24 hours. + +i'll run it by him, but i imagine there will be a limit to that even if he were to agree. + +okay fine. any reasonable amount of money. i'm just tired of money dean, i want to make it go away. + +dean studied him for a minute. you want money to go away or you want to stop working? + + + +The night wrapped a black blanket around them, broken only by an incandescent orange glow that seemed to breath and pulse on the horizen. From the highway the city looked like a distant volcano, belching out smoke and ash, a trickle of red-yellow magma marking the streets and avenues. The flames of burning buildings mingling with the tangerine light of sodium street lamps from roads not yet on fire, creating a smoldering lava of color that flowed around the dark, impenetrable cone of abandoned skyscrapers downtown. From afar it looked like a mysterious black void rising out the orange lava -- a living volcano with nearly a million inhabitants yet. Already the faint sulfuric smell of burnt rubber and ash infused the air. The light of the burning city was held low by a canopy of thick black smoke from the smoldering tires that Sil knew would mark the periphery of the skirmishes. It perched over the glow, suffocating the light, holding it low and blotting out the distant stars still somewhere up in the sky above. As the highway drew them near the lights began to flickering more distinctly, flames leaping off rooftops, streets lights glowed along the riverfront side of the city where the fighting rarely strayed. The buildings in the center grew more distinct, revealing that they too had faint strains of light -- the financial district where the currency traders were cleaning up and bagging their near worthless bills for tomorrow's endless trading runs. + +They rode in silence, the dog lay between them, head in Sil's lap. As they got closer Dean rolled down the window and the raw galvanic smell of burning rubber rushed in. Sil gestured toward the glove box and Dean opened it, pulling out several bandanas which they tied over their faces to keep from inhaling the heavy soot that was starting to rain down. Once inside the canopy of ash and smoke, Sil watched the rearview mirror as the stars faded and then disappeared. He slowed down, cut the headlights and turned off on an unmarked dirt track that led down into a Cypress glade. The dog sat up. Dean leaned his head out the window to study the great balls of Spanish Moss and basket spiderwebs hanging over the road. Sil parked the truck in a marshy, half-sunken pullout and they covered the truck with a camofage canopy Sil left stashed in the trees for the purpose. It was half a mile to the ferry dock, they walked in silence. only the faint padding of footfalls muffled by a chorus of frogs, crickets, cicadas and other remants of night life singing from their dark niches of swamp. After a while the the trail forked off the rode proper and made its way through the Cypress grove on stilted planks that creaked and groaned as they moved. Sil lit the way with a dim flashlight that did little more show them how thick the ash was even under the canopy of trees. Finally he turned and handed it Dean, setting out with only the faint glow to guide him. Annie walked on ahead, without hesitating, toenails clicking on the wooden boards. After three quarters of a mile the trail cut up out of the mangroves and found the muddy banks where it moved through tall grass. Sil tried not the think about the afternoon's snakes, but he couldn't help walking faster through the grass, fairly running toward the faint lantern light of boatman's house in the distance. + +The old man was sitting on the porch, bathed in the light that spilled out the window, cleaning mussel shells with an oily red cloth, when Dean and Sil walked down the drive. He stood and watched them approach, stepping off the porch with a sawed off shotgun rested in the crook of his elbow. His hair was matted and his white beard already turning black from the soot-filled air. + +Hallo. + +Hallo. The old man spat, sizing up Dean in sidelong glances. + +City's burning tonight Sil. + +I know it. + +Kesper's people are making a move on some bankers. + +What for? + +The old man shrugged, traded with the wrong people I imagine. + +NRP's out in force? + +Sounds like it. + +Well. Sil looked down at his shoes. We need to go down to the docks. + +Not worth the trip. + +Sil jerked his head in Dean's direction. The man wants a drink. + +The boatman stared at Dean for a minute and shook his head. I got plenty of whiskey in the house. Here I'll fetch a glass, he started to turn. + +Sil smiled. Thank you, but no. We need to get downtown. + +The old man studied him, the lines around his eyes deepening like trenches as he squinted at Sil in the dull orb of light casting off the porch. After a while he began to slowly nod his head as if having come to conclusion. + +You're taking out Arbella then? + +Something like that. + +You plan on coming back tonight? + +Sil glanced at Dean, he was staring at the ground, making half circles with the polished toe of his shoe. No. + +The old man mulled it over and then began to nod again. I'll go as far as Setter's place. He turned and spat again watching them both to see how it sat. It's gonna cost though. + +Sil nodded. + +Dean fished in his pockets and pulled out some crumpled ameros and started to hand them to the boatman. Sil pushed his arm down. + +The boatman coughed. Thanks kid. I already got plenty of bum paper. + +Sil stepped forward and put his arm around the old man, he could feel his shoulder blades like mountain ridges hidden beneath the soft flannel of his shirt. Sil walked him up the porch and into the house. You know where I park my truck? + +The old man nodded. + +Sil smiled, I thought you might. He fished in his pocket. Here's the keys. + +The old man craned his head around to look at him. + +Sil pressed the keys into his hand and folded the man's fingers over them before removing his arm. Where's that whiskey? We might need one for the road. + +He shuffled into the kitchen and came back carrying three glasses and a cloudy, finger-smudged jar of brown liquor. They stepped outside onto the porch where Dean was leaning against the rail smoking a cigarette. + +You mind if I have one of those? + +Dean reached in his pocket and handed the old man a cigarette. He turned it over in his hands, regarding it as though it were an ancient artifact. He put it in his mouth and lit it off Dean's offered lighter. + +Sil sat in a chair and the old man in the other, Dean continued to lean against the rail, he and the old man puffing in silence. After a while the old man set his cigarette down and commenced to filling the glasses with whiskey. + +So you're off to see Arbella? + +If she's still there. + +The old man nodded. She'll be there. + +She better. + +She will. He passed them the glasses and they all drank. And then what? + +South. + +South. + +Yep. + +The old man nodded. He took another drag of the cigarette. My daughter's over the fence somewhere you know. Dean and Sil said nothing. She went up for work. There's a lot of work up there I hear. All the work you could want. She came to visit me a couple years back. Said it wasn't so bad. + +So I hear. + +Not so bad. + +Dean nodded. + +Sometimes I think about going up there. + +Dean glanced at Sil. You really want to go up? + +The old man said nothing. + +Sil lit a cigarette. + +The old man said nothing more. They finished their cigarettes in silence, listening to the nightsongs of the swamp, the river, the distant city crackling with life and death. + +After they were done the old man stood and went inside. He turned off the lights and shuffled back out, locking the front door behind him. They followed him down the rotting dock planks and climbed inside the boat. The old man cranked on the Chevy block several times before it caught and sputtered to life. Sil pushed off the dock, easing the stern out into the river where the ten foot pole extending out the engine could drop the propeller into the water. There was gurgling sound, like blood escaping a slit throat, and then the boat began to move forward, pulled downstream by the currents as the propeller gained momentum. The old man reached over and pushed the choke down before twisting the handle and the engine roared to life. They quickly picked up speed and slid downriver through a hail of soot and ash, toward the distant flames. + + + + +At Setter's wharf the old man killed the engine and clided up toward the wodden dock in silence, lettering the river carry them the last hundred meters, still several onlookers had gathered up near the gangplank and the seawall to see who was arriving at such an hour and perhaps suss out why. + +they were hardly out of the boat when the old man shoved off and disappeared back up river. the sound of the engine faded sllowly until it was lost amid the churning gurgle of the river. + + + +f + +I though ameros were good on the black market? Bought my plane flight in with them. + +Sil took a sip of beer. Ameros are fine if you're in town, or if you're rich enough to get out of town. But for most people Kesper's bills are much safer. Walk into most banks outside the city with an Amero and one of Kesper's people will make a note of it. + +Dean nodded. Where's your friend fall. + +Scratch? He's boatman, he doesn't fall. Sil glanced around the room, eyeing one of the girls standing to back, leaning against the stair rail. Most everybody down here is just trying to live Dean. The only people involved in lighting shit up are the one's working for Kesper. + +Kesper's days are numbered + +All our days are numbered. + +Well, some have fewer numbers. + +You know which ones? + +Dean smiled. + +Then what does it matter Dean? + +You guys get rid of Kesper, so what? You know how many more Kesper's there are? I know there were big plans and all, but face it, it just won't work. There are just too many. + diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/intro to sil.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/intro to sil.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eab4ad3 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/intro to sil.txt @@ -0,0 +1,525 @@ +Sil goes up the side canal, part of the flooded river, Scratch is back on the main river with Arbella, hidden in the overgrowth, the mast folded down. Sil stays in the tree during the day, watching. In the rain he sees the modmen (maechanically enhanced) killing the slaves. he doesn't do anything. he just watches. + +Or he wrestles with what to do for some time and finally decided to free them, going down at night and using his blow gun to kill one soldier and then shooting the second. He then blasts the sonic fence and talks to the men before letting them off. + + +Then he finally makes it to the house and meets the woman and the little girl. He leads them back across the prison territory, to the boat. The woman dies, from snakebite or perhaps something human? Sil and Scrtach and the dog and the litle girl head south for new orleans. They slip through the blockade and head out to sea. + +The passage at sea starts with the bird falling on the deck, the hummingbird that didn't make it. Then they make land in Nicaragua where they meet up with Dean who is letting Claire stay there. Claire has come down by land through mexico, after spending time with the nuns she leaves again going through the jungle until she emerges at Ameritown on the eastern coast of what used to be nicaragua. + +The Arbellville exists because Dean and Sil fled the the country when the US fell. The steal the boat (or maybe not, how does scratch come into the picture? How do Dean and Sil know each other?). Ameritown exists because Sil believed that the best place to hide and run a smuggling operation from would be the mosqiuto coast since that's what had been happening there for hundreds of years anyway. The start out with just a few shacks and then, because they are so successful at getting in and out of places a community begins to form, like minded people, not ruthlessly violent, simly people who want to be left alone. There is only one law, do not harm. When there is harm, the person doing the harming is tried under a very simple code: did you harm? If so they are expelled. Though the turth was, in all the time it had taken for the town to grow to a sizeable habitation of some seven or eight hundred souls, no one had ever been expelled. + +**** + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +The air was heavy, a wet wool sweater suffocating the day. Beech leaves hung overhead, jagged, silent gar's teeth ready to snap at the sky. Sil rounded a bend in the channel and came to a long row of oak trees. Limbs swept out from the trunks in great arcs that bowed under their own weight until they seemed to droop over the dark water. The leaves were thick like hands, the moonlight obscured in a black tunnel of gnarled oak fingers. Sil poled the skiff slowly along, planting the long bamboo pole at the bow and pulling the boat past it. Then he turned smartly on his heal, pushing now, and walked back toward the stern as the boat glided along beneath him. His bare feet threaded their way between the planked ribs of the hull, the thick skin too calloused for splinters to penetrate. When he reached the stern he turned around and walked back to the bow, planting the pole again and repeating the endless journey from bow to stern. The boat moved quietly up the canal, under the oaks and the massive basket-spider cobwebs that hung like Chinese lanterns over the cool flood waters. He was headed inland, away from the wide river, the relative safety of Arbella, Scratch and Galen, all hidden away in a camouflage of bushes and branches, tucked in a quiet eddie on the west side of the river. Sil felt like Sisyphus, endlessly pacing the length of the boat, wondering what compelled him to walk forward yet again. Nothing. This was what he had said he would do. So he did it. + +He emerged from under the canopy of trees, back out into the moonlight where, rather than relief, he suddenly felt exposed. He pulled over the side and sat down in the boat. He fumbled in his pack for the night vision goggles and strapped them on to study the banks of the channel. There were a pair of deer, eating quietly in the bushes a hundred yards ahead of him, but that was all he could see. The channel continued to narrow. At this rate, thought SIl, I'll be walking before dawn. + +After several more hours the channel was narrow enough that he could push off the marshy banks. Cattail blooms dried like Panama cigars on brittle stalks bobbed in the ripples of his wake. The air carried the faint smell of late summer honeysuckle and jasmine, a slight sweetness that mingled with the foul water of the channel water to create something not far off from rotting human flesh. + +The eastern sky was already a barely perceptible shade of purple when he spotted the overgrowth. It looked exactly the way the man had described it. A fouled mass of skin-tearing briars. Silverthorn, Bougainvillea, laurel bushes and razor grass planted to discourage anyone from straying too far up this side channel. Sil shifted the pole to his other hand and wiped the sweat on the dirty leg of his jeans. He gave one last push and quickly lay down in the hull. The continued forward, the tangles and sharp blades drifted by overhead. It was pure black beneath the bushes, but as his eye adjusted he saw cobwebs and abandoned birds' nests, snarls of twigs brought up the channel when the river flooded its bank. He grabbed the sturdier branches and pulled the boat further in. Dead limbs scraped against the hull of the boat, screaching off into the the night. Sil winced and let the boat slow to a stop. He listened, half-expecting to hear the a startled aligator to come over the side, half-hoping it would, half-hoping it would all just end here, quickly, if not quietly. But there was no sound save the chirp and warble of insects, crickets chirped, cicada wings hummed in the stillness, as if nothing were wrong. He pulled on another branched, pushed off a larger limb with his left foot. After what he guessed was a half mile the jumble of bushes began to thin out, the starry sky became visible between the branches and then the boat slipped free of them and he lay back, starring up at the big dipper. Sil rolled over slowly, swatted at cobwebs and wiped off the dead leaves that had fallen on him. He scooted forward, to the bow of the boat and looked around. Dawn arrived. the faint purple glow turned a more distinctive red-orange. The water around him became milky yellow. A warbler began to sing somewhere in the tangle of branches behind him. He tried the goggles again, but even the long shadows seem to hold nothing. He didn't have time to wait. He reached up, grabbed a sizable branch and pushed the boat forward. It slipped along in silence until it hit the first bit of broken wood that still clung to the half-sunken dock. The bow slid up onto the lower, submerged portion of the dock. Sil pulled himself over the edge of the hull and flopped onto the wood like a beached fish. He began to make his way forward, dragging himself along with his forearms toward the tree line on the shore. He cursed the splintered boards as they dug into his arms, but eventually he reached the first bushes and dragged himself to a seated position. He twisted his arms around to extract several rather large splinters from each. He wished someone would just take a shot at him so he could turn around and run. But no one did. He put on the goggles and turned around to scan the area inland from the dock. + +In front of him was half a mile of marshy bog, reeds and grass and mud, partly flooded from the rains that had fallen all throughout the previous week. The grasses were brown and overgrown. There was little in the way of cover until the far side of the bog where a line of good size trees marked the bottom of the first hill that would lead out of the river basin and eventually into the mountains. He could see a shelf of limestone halfway up the side of the hill. A few tulip populars and small oaks grew in its dark gray fissures, but the top of the rock was clear and offered a commanding view of the bog, the stream and probably, Sil guessed, most of the river valley behind him. If you were going to watch the area, that would be the place to do it. Nothing moved. Sil knew he would never make it across the marsh before the sun was well up in the sky, but the potential cover of the trees was more alluring than spending the day near the water, the boat and other obvious signs that he existed. He went back to the dugout and laced up his boots. He threw the backpack over his shoulder, grabbed the shotgun and headed off toward the forest line. + +His feet sank deep into the marsh mud with every step and required a sizable effect to extract them, that a sucking, sloshing noise every time he moved. The pack lurched from side to side with every awkward step, throwing him off balance. More than once he simply fell over sideways into the grass and mud. Each time, after he righted himself, he carefully cleared the barrel of the shotgun with a rag from his back pocket and wiped down the goggles that still hung about his neck and bashed into his chin every time he stumbled. His lip bled and he could feel the leaches burning on his legs. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +It was daylight by the time he made it to the base of the hill. He stripped off the pack and went back down to the edge of the bog to wash the mud from his legs. The dirty water just made him dirtier, but he could see the leaches well enough to get them off. He couldn't risk a fire and he didn't have any matches so he simply ripped them off, small chunks of his flesh coming with them. He walked back to his pack and pulled out his medical kit. He splashed a bit of alcohol on the wounds and put tape over the larger ones. With any luck he'd be back to Arbella long before any serious infection started to fester. He packed up his gear again and kept moving up the hill. He climbed to the top of the limestone outcrop and looked back at where he'd come from. The stream was merely a line of green trees amongst the brown landscape as it traced its way back toward the Mississippi. Sil sat down and drank from his canteen. Behind him the forest thickened and hill grew steeper, climbing skyward through a thick undergrowth of ferns and dried honeysuckle vines, leaves sheathed in dust. He climbed on, over mossy, rotting logs and dense leaves the cruched with every step. A log spun beneath his foot and Sil jumped back to stop it before it rolled down the hill. It rested unsteadily against his shin and then he gingerly stepped over it into a dark, worm carved underbelly of the log. The exposed ground was covered in toadstools and lined with ant tunnels, maggot burrows and centipedes all working their way out of the dense primordial sludge of rotting leaves. He stared at the layers of leaves slick with lichens and molds, years upon years of leaves matted to the forest floor like the thick pages of a water logged book. Sil kicked at the leaves with his foot and exposed a small forest of liverworts and fungus sprouting from the dark soil somewhere below. Satisfied the log wasn't going to crash down the hillside he continued up the hill. He fell into the slow rhythm of defeat, each step up his foot slid halfway back down. He moved like a somnambulist now, ascending slowly into the dark depths of the forest that would shelter him from the waking world. + +Thunder was already rumbling in the distance when he staggered to the top of the ridge. He drained the canteen and walked the crest in seach of a suitable tree. He found a massive beech, the tall straight trunk leading up thirty feet before the first horizontal branches reached out into the forest canopy. He pulled the boot spikes out of his pack and snaked a rope around the trunk. Throwing both the pack and the shotgun over his shoulder he began to climb. It was slow going, kicking the spikes in the bark and then carefully testing it with his weight before pulling himself up, shifting the rope that snaked around the trunk and looped through the hoops in his harness securing him, somewhat. Then he repeating the process, kicking with the other foot, testing his weight and climbing higher. His mouth was dry and sweat soaked his back by the time he rested on the first limb. He studied the canopy around him. About twenty feet above him was an eight inch thick limb that jutted out and then curved to its left to avoid a thin pine tree, making, Sil thought, a good enough spot to string a hammock. It took him another ten minutes to reach it and then he tied himself off to the tree, secured his pack with another length of rope and pulled out his second and last canteen. + +He was busy guzzling water when he heard the unmistakable sound of mechanical servos and hydraulic pistons. He hurriedly screwed the canteen up, checked his harness to make sure it was secure and pulled the shotgun around on its strap so that it lay across his lap. He brought the binoculars to his eyes. The soldiers were moving slowly, Sil could hear them at least five minutes before he saw them, five men, exosketelon legs propelling them with almost zero effort on their part. Sil knew the legs, while they were moving slowly at the moment, could run up to thirty miles an hour, some people claimed much faster, though it hardly mattered since even the low end of spectrum could easily run down the average human being. The soldiers below him were moving slowly only because the terrain made it nearly impossible to do otherwise. The soldier in front was sweeping the terrain with something that looked like an old police radar gun. His face was hidden in the shadow of a baseball cap, but his uniform was unbuttoned and his shirt soaked with sweat. The heat and humidity didn't care what sort of legs you had. The soldiers were carrying automatic rifles with pistols strapped to strapped to their chests. Around the lead man's waist was a belt of concussion grenades. He had stopped as he crested the ridge, the others fell in around him looking at the screen on the back of the radar gun. The man swept the gun down the hillside and, after some words Sil was too far away to hear, two of the soldiers stepped out of their exolegs. One of the soldiers lit a cigarette, the other turned and pissed into a dogwood beside the trail. The rest passed a water jug between them. Sil kept the binoculars trained on the radar gun, but he couldn't make out what it was, only that it had a screen on the back and gave some kind of read out. Eventually the smoking man flicked away the butt of his cigarette and the two climbed back in their exolegs. The lead soldier set off down the hill, toward the bog and the others followed. Sil watched them go. He scanned out, down the hill to the edge of the bog. He decided to wait and see if they crossed it. When the sound of the mechanical legs had faded to almost nothing, he untied himself and set up his hammock to wait out the afternoon. + +It began to rain. Sil pulled his poncho out and draped it over hammock. It was stifling, but better than spending the afternoon in a pool of dirty water, or worse exceeding the weight limits of the hammock and ending up on the ground with a broken neck. He set the empty canteen at the edge of the hammock and pushed the tarp up to form a crease that slowly filled the canteen back up. Periodically he used the binoculars to scan the marsh in search of the patrol, but no one appeared. Perhaps the exolegs didn't work in mud, but then why bring then down here, to the river basin where mud was inevitable. Perhaps they were just waiting out the storm. Sil laid the binoculars down on his chest. Without noticing that he had done so, Sil fell asleep for the first time in nearly thirty-six hours. + +He started awake to a world of darkness and the crashing of thunder reflexively clutching at the shotgun cradled across his stomach. It was there, cool and comforting in his hands, the barrel still safely covered and dry. He lifted the edge of the poncho and looked out. It had stopped raining, though the water still dripped from the leaves of tree around him and over him. He was surprised to see the flicker of firelight through the trees. He couldn't see the fire itself, it was too far away, just the amber pulsing. Otherwise the night was black, clouds still obscuring the stars and sliver of the moon that should have been coming up over the the northern ridges of the Osarks, which he knew were between him and his destination. And now he knew there might well be soldiers between him and Arbella. Soldiers that could run twice as fast and fight five times as well as he could. He put on the goggles and looked in the direction of the fire, but all he could see was a green blossom of light, as if the forest had exploded and was being enveloped in a green mist. It reminded him of comics, the Green Lantern or Iron Fist. He took off the goggles and let his eyes adjust back to the darkness. He climbed out of the hammock and sat down on the tree limb, letting the cool water drip in the back of his neck. The night smelled of rain and the dead leaves below him, a warm fecund reminder that that decay always wins in the end, no matter who's army you're in. Sil began to fumble through the hammock, storing his gear back in the pack. He pulled the poncho over his head, shouldered the pack and clipped onto the line. He dropped slowly, trying to avoid the whine of rope and carabiner. He felt the familiar relief wash over him when he hit the ground. + +He sat down, leaning against the tree and debated what to do. He considered backtracking, heading down to the outcropping to look at the camp, but he had over twenty miles to cover by dawn if he was going to stay on schedule. The smart thing to do he knew was to stick with the plan, cover the distance, do the job and leave. The war was over. Still, it had been a long time since he had had an opportunity to strike back against the Protectorate in any tangible sort of way. The hill was nearly fifty miles from the border of the prison territory and held primarily by the Protectorate. To hit them here, deep in their own territory. People would hear about it. The president would hear about it. Or maybe not. From what Sil had both heard and seen on his way up river with Scratch, the Protectorate was not particularly concerned with old St. Louis or the borderlands around the prison states. There was no need really, the biggest danger in here was not revolution or even AI, it was breeding lions, outbreaks of Cholera and Dengue, to say nothing of the people inside the prison states. Even smugglers didn't come here. There were no sizable cities left inhabited, no economies to speak of, it was a I2 dead zone, no net, no nothing. There was simply no one left. The sane thing to do was what Sil and Scratch always did, slip into the port cities like New Orleans, drop your goods, collect your money and slip out again. It has been working for over four years now. But this was not a normal smuggling run. They had come in empty and would going out full. They were, as Scratch had pointed out countless times over the two weeks it had taken them to slip this far upstream, doing it assbackwards. And now there were soldiers here. That was assbackwards too. Disconcerting, but it gave him something to think about as he made his way inland, even further from the river, the water, escape. + +West of Cairo, Illinois, where the Mississippi and the Ohio meet, a small tributary, too small to navigate with a boat like Arbella, but large enough for canoe, cuts through a rolling valley spread out between the easternmost ridges of the Ozarks that hold in the valley like a snake nestling between fingers. Once this valley was farm country, but the meandering river and the sudden influx of polar melt had flooded the land from the east, upending the overgrown peach orchards and burying the beans and corn with silt and sand swept down from the higher valleys. The farmers were already gone by then, lured by St. Louis and then later by the army, by both armies. Even before the protectorate turned its back on its own breadbasket and acquiesced to demands of food importers this small valley had turned feral. At the upper end of the valley was Lake Wappapello, once the source of water and finally the destroyer of the valley when the dam could no longer contain the swelling waters behind it. It had burst and drained, leaving behind rich, gar-nourished soil that quickly became the boggy marshes Sil waded through. + +After the lake the Osarks began. a series of folds and contours that look looked as if someone had crumpled up paper and spread it flat again. The mountains were not high, but the terrain was some of the worst in the area, dense chokes of undergrowth. Kudzu and peavines laced through every available space and blocked anyone and anything heading west, higher into the mountains. The mountains themselves dictated on harsh terms where the roads could go. Sil has been heading northwest, following a winding old state road, overgrown enough to offer shelter and hiding, but still passable. Ahead of him was Graves Mountain, at the base of which was a cabin. One of the many stops on the underground that traversed through the Protectorate like an illicit scent wafting out the windows of an otherwise hermetically sealed shimmering glass building. + +Sil walked through a night bathed in in the false green light of his googles. The humidity fogged the glass in from of his eyes and soften the world even more. The clouds had begun the clear, the faint light of the moon smeared its way through the humid air. He turned off the infrared beam. The forest around him was suffused with mist and wisps of fog that rose off the wet ground in swirling clouds. The green mist parted as his feet stirred their way through. He stopped in the relative cool of a timber stand that marked the end of a long forested descent. He could smell the sour breath scent of milkweed and rotting vegetation drifting in from the field in from of him, but something else on the edge of it, water. He pushed on across the field and found the stream. With his canteens full, he stripped off his clothes and lay down in the chilly water, scrubbing shakily at his body. Perched naked on a rock, he surveyed the colorless night without goggles. Clouds drifted in front of the moon and then part around it as if burnt off in some lunar heat. When he was relatively dry he dressed again and continued walking toward the next stretch of forest. + +Sil had developed the ability to feel dawn coming. There is moment in the utter darkness of the early morning where something changes, the world twitches suddenly, as if starting awake from the dream of night. A fleeting movement where the world suddenly sees itself blinks and then falls back, recedes into the dreamworld of existence, prepared now to do it all again. Sil had become aware of the that blinking awareness, like a a rolling wave that passed through him in an instant and continued on to the horzens and beyond. He began to look for a suitable tree. + + + * * * * + + +Up near the house he could see the fence line, overgrown with a creeping vine that nearly swallowed it back into the landscape. It started on the north side, moving though the side yard where some of it joined the fence, while other vines bore straight to the north wall and climbed up to the roof. The house was only yet about two-thirds consumed in vine, the fallen porch still hung on, its sagging curve lending the house a vaguely human quality, as if it were slowly forming a rather sinister smile. A quarter mile to his left was what remained of an old barn, its roof timbers having long since caved in to become little more than a breeding ground for bats and swallows, a few of which Sil could see darting through the air, their indigo throats flashing like sequins in the evening sun. + +Just east of the house he could see where the road, a generous word for the twin tire tracks cutting through the muddy red earth, emerged from a thicket that sheltered the front entrance to the property. There was no sign of life, although from his vantage point he couldn't see far into the shadows of the forest where, he well knew, just about anything could be lurking. But he saw no obvious signs of soldiers, or anything else. There was just the throbbing heat and stillness. He put the binoculars down and rolled over on his back, trying to be perfectly still. He closed his eyes and listened for anything out of the ordinary, but he heard only cicadas and crickets along with a lone bullfrog warming up for the coming night. There was a stream back behind hi, he had followed it for the last two miles this morning. Downstream he could make out the sound of a Kingfisher, its sharp cry reflecting and echoing off the water. Finally, satisfied he had not been followed and willing to admit that anyone lying in wait was simply more patient than he was and therefore had earned the right, he stood up waited for the sniper bullets to tear him apart. + +He left the river trail and begin to cross the open field. The ground was soft from rain and his boots sunk into the red earth and dried stalks of blow over grasses. Just in front of the house was the stretch of fence he had been warned about. Sil stopped and wiped the sweat from his brow, studying the two sides of fence that lined the walk up to porch. The rails of warm gray wood had been reinforced, or their message reinforced with lengths of barbed wire, but it wasn't the barbed wire that bothered him, it was the large water moccasins tied by the tail to the top line of barbed wire. some stretched out on the wooden rails, others were coiled threateningly on the posts. + +Sil considered his options. He could jump the fence into the open grassy patches that were, according to his sources, laced with Claymore mines. Or he could simply thread his way through the snakes. Nothing to it. Just take a slow oscillating path around each snake, alternating sides of the fence to stay out of striking range. He began to ease his way past the first snake, sliding gingerly along, his back pressed against the opposite rail to the point that he felt his shirt catching on splinters. The first two snakes ignored him as he passed and then slowly backed away from him, but the third reared its head at his approach. Sil froze. He watched the dark eyes fix on him as the snake's tongue tasted the air. Backing up would mean possibly agitating the two he'd already passed. Sil guessed the snake was at least five feet long and even crawling, it would likely reach him without too much trouble. Sil decided to do what he did best. Nothing. + +He stood still for several minutes, hoping the snake would lose interest. He listened to his own breath and felt beads of sweat begin to run down down his forehead. After a few minutes the sweat overwhelmed what was left of his left eyebrow and begin to trickle into his eyes, pulling a salty blur over the world. Starry spikes slowly rose up, as if growing out of everything in his vision. He blinked rapidly, but the effect lingered. He closed his left eye, but the right one began to water at the lopsided view. He took a deep breath and tried to relax. You have been shot at he told himself, seen men disemboweled for sport and lived off grilled rats and fear, this is nothing. But the slow breathing did nothing to help the sense of vertigo that began to creep over him. He could feel his heart beat in his stomach and was sure that if he looked down he would be able to see the skin vibrating like the thin head of stretched over the copper cauldron of a timpani drum. Dizziness descended as he stared at the coiled snake, weighing his options. Before long he found that his feet had become free agents, refusing to obey the commands he was pretty sure he was sending them. Sil wondered if perhaps the snake had already bitten him and venom was simply taking its course, eating away at his insides and infecting his brain, but he felt sure he would not have overlooked being bitten. The snake remained exactly where it was, coiled tense and whipping the air with its forked black tongue. Sil begin to see spots at the edges of his vision, as if he had been bent over for some time and straightened up to quickly... the world was dissolving bit by bit as his brain started to discard data it seemed to no longer needed. At the same time he noticed that his body seemed somehow larger than he was accustomed to, something beyond the frame and shape he had known for more than thirty-five years. He felt swollen, like a balloon. The snake opened its mouth to reveal pink and white gums, already dripping tiny rivulets of venom, little starry drops, like geometric crystals breaking off the thin, white, icicle fangs. The fangs, the snake, the green veined leaves of the vine, the rusty red of the barbed wire, everything seemed brighter, larger and somehow more real than anything Sil could recall seeing. And then it began to recede, black crept in, spots connecting at the edges of his vision, spilled ink pooling on a cartoonist's table slowly dissolving the scene at hand as that part of the mind that keeps us from what we cannot bear beat a retreat into nothingness. + +Sil came to on the ground. He turned his head and saw the snake now fully extended, bouncing back against the fence with a violence that almost made Sil feel sorry for it. He lay in the grass for a while, staring up at the clouds, trying to feel for any pain that might indicate he had been bitten. + +Eventually he wormed forward on his belly until he was sure he was out of reach of the snakes. He stood and dusted himself off. He walked slowly up the trail to the house, stepping over a short wooden fence into the overgrown garden, its knee-high thistles lying in wait. Sil stepped gingerly around the obvious thorns and made it to porch where he stopped to work out which boards would support his weight, and which would send him crashing down through into the darkness he could see through the broken steps. He had just about figured it out when he felt something hard and round press against the back of his head. + +Easy. + +On your knees, slowly. + +Sil was relieved to hear a woman's voice. He knelt. + +Hands on the back of your head. + +He did as she said, though when she stepped formard to he carefully balled his fists and straightened his thumbs. If she noticed she didn't care, she slipped on the zip ties and pulled them tight. He brought his hands down in front of him and sighed. + +Up, walk. + +He took a few hesitating steps forward testing the boards as he went. + +Open the door. + +He turned the handle and pushed the door forward. He half stumbled forward as she pushed him from behind with her foot. He staggered into the room only to be greeted by a man with another gun leveled at his head. + +They put him through the Q and A and then offer him a drink. They talk about the soldiers. + + + + + + + + + + +The door was already swinging open by the time he got there. The woman smiled, her white teeth shining against the murky darkness of the room as he slid inside and waited for his eyes to adjust. He slowly took in the peeling green wallpaper and tattered chairs against the blacked-out window. An oil lantern burned on the mantel. The woman took a bottle off the mantel and poured a dark brown liquid into two glasses. She extended one to Sil without looking him. He smiled and took it. He stood by the window, studying the layers of pasted newspaper scraps that served to blot out the world. There were headlines about the bombs in Los Angeles, snippets of virilant editorials protesting martial law, overlayed articles recounting the slow disintegration of the union, frightening accounts of the first super hurricane to make landfall. It was someone's person catalogue of disaster that struck Sil as some how farsical despite having lived through most of it. He sipped the whiskey and bend over to read the least faded scraps down by the windowsill. The only faintly yellowed paper couldn't have been more than three years old, which meant that whoever had lived here hadn't left until shortly before the resistance began using it. The headline and blurb were a smear of newspaper ink thanks to drip, but Sil could still make out one headline recounting the driving of the golden spike for the fence and speculating that eventually the fence would no longer be necessary thanks to "prosperity and a bright future throughout the world." Sil grunted and turned around. + +He handed the glass back to the woman and flopped down in a chair, a small cloud of mildew and mold rising it off it as he did. He shifted awkwardly trying the find a spot where the springs did not poke up into his legs. + +The snakes are active these days. + +She smiled sipping softly at her own glass of whiskey. They get that way when it's hot. You just need to talk to them. + +He stared at her impenetrable eyes, wondering how she had ended up here. Someday he planned to ask, though he doubted she would tell him. Over the years Sil had come to find her rther attractive though he would have been the first to admit that she was not beuatiful in any traditional sense, whatever the hell that meant. Nevertheless, she had, though not so much lately figured prominantly in his dreams. She was not fat, though her exact figure was difficult to determine given the flowing shirts she typically wore, which together with what Sil estimated to be some forty necklaces dangling over her not to be ignored chest, gave her a certain gypsy air that appealed to something in Sil that he'd never fully brought to surface. No, not fat, but certainly plump, big-boned Dean would have said, with skin so white it bordered on tranluscent. Sil was sure that if the house had had lights he would have been able to see the blue ribbons of her veins threading their way through her body... Early on Sil had been suffered through a series of nightmares in which she in fact turned out to be completely see-through much like the human anatomy models sitting in the corner of the lab at the university where he had lived in a previous life. Yet there was nothing frail or fragile about her, in spite of her nearly transparent skin. And she had the most fantastic head of scorched red hair Sil had ever laid eyes on, a wide tangle of hair that would have better suited a horse's main or some other more industrial purpose than adorning the head of this woman who had steadfastly refused for two years now to even tell Sil her name, which, he reflected, probably had a good deal to do with why he sometimes felt haunted by her. + +He fished out a cigarette and ignored her frown as he lit it. You have any idea what they would do to you if they caught you? + +No worse than what they would do to you... + +So why are you always worried about me smoking? + +It's not the smoking, though I think it's a deplorable addiction, it's the smoke that lingers... a patrol passes by tomorrow say, they see an abandoned shack, they stop in, they find nothing they move on... they stop in they smell smoke they decide maybe to keep an eye on it for a while... + +Humf. Never thought of that. Sil moved to put out the cigarette, but she waved her hand. + +You might as well smoke it now, the damage is already done... + +Sil sunk lower in his chair and continued to smoke. Well, if it makes you feel any better I don't think I'll be doing this much longer. + +She frowned. That doesn't make me feel better at all. You're the best mule I work with. + +Sil smiled. Really? + +Well, you're the only one who's lasted this long... + +Jesus. Don't say that. You'll jinx me. + +You're superstitious? She threw her head back laughing. You are the same Sil Hawkard I've read about in I2 right? + +Just because I used to be... look, I mean... He considered the question for a moment. Isn't it obvious that there are patterns in the world, patterns other than those which are currently understood by us...? It's not that I'm superstitious it's that I'm not so arrogant as to believe that the roots of superstition are without merit... + +She said nothing, finished her drink. Well then, she bent her head and used both hands to free one of the necklaces from the tangle of their breathren... here, she held it out to Sil, take this. + +Sil took the beaded silver chain from her hand and studied the center piece, a skelton key. What's it open? + +I have no idea, she smiled. But it has always brought me good luck. + +Then you should keep it. + +She waved her hand. What I do doesn't require luck anymore. + +No? + +I have faith. + +Sil didn't say anything but he was thinking that faith wasn't much good in the face of machine guns. He spun the chain around his finger until it and key were a ball in his palm. He twisted in the chair as his hand worked the necklace into his pocket. Well then...? + +She motioned down the hall. They're in there. + +Sil stood, wiped the chair funk from the back of his pants, and followed her through the living room, stepping gingerly over the rotting floorboards to the back of the house, behind the kitchen, into what had once been a canning room or perhaps a screened porch. Now it was reduced to bare two by fours and tarpaper walls several layers thick. A young girl, maybe seven years old, though Sil couldn't be sure in the faint light, sat on a woman's lap. The girl's eyes were moist and swollen. Sil could tell she had either been crying or was about to cry. The woman stood as he approached, setting the girl on the floor and extending her hand. Sil couldn't help noticing the scars on her arm as he took her hand. He looked up embarrassed, but her eyes only made it worse. He smiled awkwardly. No names he blurted out hurriedly before she could speak. + +She hesitated. Nice to meet you. + +Sil nodded. You understand how this works? + +Yes. + +You understand it's hot, claustrophobic and probably the worst two to three hours of your life? + +She bit her lip and looked down. + +Okay. He fumbled with his hands, suddenly unsure of what to do with himself and smarting under the realization that this would probably be nothing compared to what the woman had already been through. + +Let's get it over with then. + +The woman took the girl by the hand and led her out of the room. The girl never took her eyes off Sil, turning her head to watch him as they walked to the front door into the waning afternoon heat. He turn to say goodbye to the woman inside, but the door quickly closed behind him and he heard the bolt snap shut. + +The three moved back down along the fence, trying as best as possible to stay beyond the reach of the snakes, none of which seemed to pay them any mind this time. When they reached the boat, Sil jumped down and pulled up the middle two planks revealing a dank and slightly waterlogged hull with just enough room for two people to lie prone. The woman stepped down and helped the girl climb into the boat. They both lay down in the hideous hold and Sil laid the boards back down over them, trying to avoid the terrified eyes of the little girl. Once the boards were in place he laid down the tattered tarp and climbed out to retrieve baskets of mayhaws. He made three trips, filling the hull with mayhaws until only a few shreds of tarp were visible. He jumped into the water and leaned his head down to the hull. + +How are you doing? + +He could hear the girl sniffling. Let's get it over with the woman said. + +Sil climbed back in the boat, shoved off the dock and lay down as they slid back under the brambles and spiderwebs. + +His pants were already as dry as they would get by the time they made it out of side canal and into the Mississippi current. Sil moved to the back of the boat and sat down on the crossboard, laying the skiff pole down and taking up the motor handle. He pulled the engine crank several times before it caught. By the time the prop was spinning they were already nearing the fence. + +He watched the sun sink into the hardwood canopy of the forest behind them. Up ahead the two remaining highrises of Baton Rogue were gleaming orange, mirroring the sunset which moved behind the boat as they rounded a bend in the river. + +Just past the city the river made another sharp turn to the east, there was a sand spit in the middle, now hosting two large and well-armed gun turrets. Sil brought the boat into the shore. A Guardsman in fatigues was watching him, smoking a cigarette. + +Hallo Sil. + +Sgt Thomas. + +The Sgt fished out a cigarette and offered it to Sil. They smoked and said nothing. After Sgt Thomas flicked his cigarette off into the river, Sil leaned down and pulled out a bag of mail. Here's some letters from your wife. Some for Clifford as well. + +He nodded, opened the bag and inspected its contents. It looks like everything is order here. + +Good. Sil turned to go and but Thomas put his hand on his shoulder, got plans for the weekend? + +No. + +He smiled. Well I bet its going to be good time to do some fishing. + +Hows that? Sil turned to look in his eyes. In the two-and-a-half years he had been paying Thomas to smuggle people out of the Protectorate, Thomas had never once said anything more than hallo and everything looks in order when he checked to make sure the money was in the mail bag. Sil felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. + +I hear they're biting is all, Thomas said with no expression in his eyes. + +Big ones? Sil tried to follow the metaphor, but wasn't sure. + +I just think it'd be good time to take that boat of yours out for some fishing, maybe coastal fishing. Like up Biloxi way. + +Oh. Sil felt like someone had just kicked him in the solar plexus. With steel toed boots. I'll keep that in mind. + +The Sgt turned and waved to the tower. + +Sil walked slowly back to the boat, his mind racing. He watched as the lights on the sonic fence went from red to green and then he pushed off the shore and let the current pull them through. He clenched his teeth despite the green light. He still had occasional nightmares about the fence videos he had seen in I2. On the other side he wasted no time firing up the motor again and opening up the throttle, executing a series of turns as the river narrowed and wound south. + +He was busy thinking about what Sgt Thomas had said when out of the blue he realized that the scars on the woman's arm might have been her attempt to remove the implants, not, as he'd initially suspected, some sort of torture or worse. For some reason this gave him a momntary feeling of calm, as if perhaps the world wasn't as utterly sideways as he sometimes felt. That thought was quickly shot down though as Sil began to think about implants. He was old enough to remember when implants refered soley to stripper padding their breasts. But then came medical histories, because of course, what better than an embedded medical history the hospital could read even if you were out cold and bleeding. The fact was it had saved countless lives... then it was money, because who wanted to carry cash anymore? No one had even hinted at ID cards or at the geolocating tools Sil had been working on when the bomb went off. Sil had been on vacation, gambling in the riverboat casinos of New Orleans when Los Angeles was reduced to ash and molten glass. He had been staying in the Quarter in a dingy flat he'd secured through a contact in I2. Travel was restricted, no planes flew for weeks. Sil made do in New Orleans, spending most of his time online, watching. + +The view from Sil's rented window went from bad to worse as the first refugees began streaming in. In the beginning to was just families from Texas and New Mexico anxious to get out of the way of the fallout. Unable to cross the borders many came as far south as the could to New Orleans. As time went on the street turned to refugee camps. Sil began to notice more vomit in the gutters, bodies began to tun up in allyes, purple spots on the skin, red radiation burns like rashes that slowly turned even the slender arms of children to grotesque misshappen tangles of keloids, black and blue skin bent and twisted in wrinkles and lumps. Those still living became incoherent, raving dementedly in streets spitting a fine mist of blood from the mouths where the raditiona ate away at their gums, reducing them to babbling fountains of blood until they to wandered back into the allyes and waited in agony as the skin began to slough off their bodies... By the time the Protectorate had formed most of the refugees had died and Typhoid began to run rampant through the city even before Ingrid made landfall. + +The appearance of several Blackbright patrol boats told Sil he was getting closer to city. The river had widened, and Sil turned toward the center to greet the patrol wakes head on, slowing to minimize the bounce. Two heavily armed men on the front of the first boat waved to him. Sil took advantage of the noise to lean over the side of the boat and yell, almost there as loud as he dared. There was no response from below. + +The sun was long gone. The reddish golden glow of twilight hung on the horizen giving him some light to navigate by, but for the most part Sil relied on years of experience to find his way down the river in darkness, picking out familiar lights on the shoreline to guide his way. He and Scratch had been running the river at night for three years now. The cargo had changed somewhere along way, no longer was it Deseil and boat parts, but, as Scratch said when he first approached Sil about running people out of the Protectorate, smuggling is smuggling. + +Sil brought the boat around the last major bend of the Mississippi and finally could see the slightly more significant glow of the city in the distance. He killed the motor and let the boat drift for a while in silence. A thin layer of fog was swirling up off the river, not enough to hide the boat completely, but enough to stop any prying eyes on the bank from getting a clear view of who or what it was doing. Sil pulled out the oars and latched down the oarlocks moving to the middle of the boat to begin rowing. The river was moving almost 3 knots and with oars Sil could double that, not the fastest craft on the water but running the engine into the city invited the kind of attention no one in New Orleans wanted. + + + + +He found himself in the least American place in America at time when A, which most people eagerly embraced -- no more lost wallets -- then medical historiesleast until he remembered that implants were an acceptable way to keep track of people. From what Sil could tell most the western world had simply accepted implants and he and handful of others like him, existing in the boundary areas of the west and elsewhere, were the only ones that thought the idea creapy or even morally wrong. Indeed it was difficult for even Sil to decide what was worse, implants or never knowing when the next bomb would go off. Put in those terms, and it always was put in those terms, implants didn't sound so bad. Which didn't, he mused, provide any insight into why scores of people would dig the implants out with whatever rusty tools they could find, risk all manner and death and debasement to lie flat in a leaking, clastophibic hellhole and slip out of the relative safety of states like the protectorate and opt, in the end, for a life that, as Sil well knew, had been reduced to near basic survival struggles. A gambling man would definitely stick with the Protectorate. It's long term survival was much more likely than any of the outlying settlments and states that had turned their back on it. New Orleans itself might outlast the Protectorate, but most of its inhabitants would not. Luckily Sil was not a gambling man, or rather, he was not a very good gambling man prefering the long odds of the underdog to any sort of logical outcome based on prudent analysis. Still, Sil wasn't sure he wouldn't stay in the Protectorate, or El Norte or anywhere else seemingly safe if he'd had a chance, but he hadn't. Owing to a fluke of geography, accidents and bad dreams Sil was where he'd always been, on the outside looking in, helping others leave without ever really understanding why they wanted to... + + + + +In new orleans now there were only smugglers and dealers. You were either a smuggler, a distributor or an outsider. Of the later it was mainly foreign journalists and mercenaries come to the war zone just as they had gone to a thousand other war zones over the last century, ostinsibly to document, though as Sil learneed from hangina round with them, most of them were seriously off kilter and had some insatiable need to put themselves in harms way, not for the glory, the one that were in it for the glory never hung around, no the real crazies were the ones that simply liked being in the middle of chaos and destruction, needed somehow the added pressure of life under the constant threat of death. As long as they paid him Sil didn't care. Scratch on the otherhand did care, tremendously. He refused to associate with or otherwise entertain so much a word with anyone claiming to be journalist. Mercenaries he regarded with suspiciion, but on some level seemed to accept the way dogs eventually come to accept fleas. + + + +Eventually he came to the large concrete boat ramp where he put in and tied up the boat. It was a ten minute walk through the woods to where his truck and boat trailer were hidden under a camouflage canopy. + +By the time he was back the light was almost gone. He loaded the boat as fast as he could and headed down the highway. He pulled into the warehouse in what was left of downtown Belle Terre, quickly jumping out of the truck to close the warehouse door behind him, though he was pretty sure that the supposed lookout somewhere in the back of his long-closed hat store was the only person still living in Belle Terre. And Sil had developed serious doubts over the last year as to whether the lookout was in fact still living. + +Once the door was closed and Sil completed his sweep of the warehouse, he hopped up on the boat and quickly gathered up the tarp of mayhaws by the corners, pooling the berries in the center and then, folding it over into a sort of spout. He then poured them out into the barrels he had stacked alongside the boat. He was pretty sure his habit of saving the mayhaws had him on more than one list-of-people-to-kill compiled by those escaping the Protectorate, but ridiculous decoy or no, it was always easier to lie when you weren't actually lying, so Sil actually did haul and even sell mayhaw.. + +He could tell something was wrong even before the deck boards came up. Everyone, even the most paranoid and disciplined escapees were always clamoring to get out. He heard nothing as he worked the crowbar under the boards, wondering what could be wrong. As soon as the first board came up all hell broke lose. The little girl bolted upright with an ear piercing scream that so shocked Sil he tripped and fell backwards, narrowly missing a fatal collision with the steel engine handle. He scrambled up as fast as he could and leaped amidships clamping his hand over her mouth before she could refill her lungs. He scooped her up in his arms and lifted her out of the boat. The minute her bare feet touched the floor she started screaming again, this time biting his hand first to get it out of the way. He tried to grab her but she wrestled away from him and ran to the far end of the warehouse. He started to chase her but her screaming had stopped so, for the moment, he let her go. His hand was bleeding and slick as he climbed back up and stood on the gunwale looking down at the woman's pale, unmoving arm. + +Jesus Christ. Sil tore up the other board and held his hand against the woman's neck. Good. A pulse. but her skin was cool and too pale, with a slightly greenish cast to it. And then he saw it. Twin sets of tiny puncture wounds along her arm. He stepped over to the other side the boat kneeled down, peering at the hand that was still hidden in the shadows of the hold. He gingerly lifted up her arm and say, clutched between her forefinger and thumb, a small moccasin, its head crushed, blood and brains smeared over the woman's knuckles. + +Shit. Shit Shit Shit. + +He scooped up the woman and lifted her out of the hull propping her limp frame against the gunwale. He felt her pulse again. Faint, but still there. He grabbed her arm and counted. Seven bites. It was a small snake, but seven bites. Shit. + +He leaped out of the boat and went to find the little girl, who was slumped against the far wall of the warehouse. Your mother has been bitten by a snake. The girl just stared blankly at him with huge, uncomprehending eyes. I need to get help. I'm going to have to go out. You must not leave this room, do you understand? She still didn't respond. Sil contemplated tying her up but decided there was no time. He was pretty sure she was in shock and he was pretty sure people in shock didn't go running off by themselves. It sounded good in his head anyway. He ran into what had once been the office of the warehouse and tore through the desk, throwing the contents on the floor, looking of any sort of medicine. He tipped over a metal cupboard in the corner but found nothing save some yellowed receipts and rusted pilers. It wasn't until he remembered the bottle of pills in the glovebox of the truck that he had anything like a plan. + + + * * * + + +The street was quiet, just beginning to wake. New orleans was something that happened at night, not during the day. The sun was already well past the horizon, the city bathed in a twilight glow. A few doors down a man was pitching buckets of water onto the concrete, washing away the mud from last night's rain. Across the street was the bank, its pale facade glowing in the dusk, pock-marks still visible, splatters of red brick poking through the white paint, where the bullets had ricocheted. Dean stood a few feet down from the doorway to The Library, nodding to regulars as they straggled out the darkness and pushed their way through the heavy wooden door. He was thinking about the guard that was not there. The guard that stood outside the bank every day, rifle slung over his shoulder, eyes hidden by the cheap formality of a tattered hat. But today the guard had never showed up. Dean came outside three different times to check, but he had never arrived. Perhaps he was sick, Dean thought. Typhoid was still a problem, dysentery could be had if one risked drinking the water. It could have been something as simple as an illness he reasoned. But down in his bones Dean knew the guard wasn't sick. He had abandoned his post, an idea that gave Dean a chill in spite of the warm night around him. + +The guard was always there, his mouth was twisted into a static, emotionless expression. His thin lips always floated, a ruddy spot of skin between and shadow of his hat and the dark blue collar of his uniform. He would nod, but never smile, at the people walking by on the street. Smiles, Dean had noticed over time, were reserved for the scant few people that actually ventured inside the bank. Given that New Orleans got by a variety of local scripts, and a complex bartering system, most kept what little hard money they had hidden in the back of water-rotted cupboards or stashed under a loose plank in the floor. There were some though, the bosses, the ad-hoc military leaders, that still used the bank and its lone connection to I2 to store their money elsewhere. During the day Dean had plenty of time to watch the guard from his room upstairs in The Library. And he never ceased to marvel at the guard's willingness to stand in broad daylight on a street ruled alternately by machine gun-wielding mercenaries, anarchists with bombs, religious revivalists with Molotov cocktails and the homicidal ex-police force, whomever happened to come down the street that day really... Dean had, after spending so many hours watching the guard, come to conclusion that it was not the job, Dean had no doubt that a mere pistol waved excitedly send the guard scurrying, but the need to hang on to those shards of normalcy that a job like guarding a bank offered. It was a symbiotic relationship, the bank wanted it to look like everything was normal and the man got the illusion that he had a job, a purpose. As if the banality of just standing somewhere, under someone else's orders was the one thing the man could cling to, the one thing that still offered a reminder of the existence they had all once known, gone now in the tension of wars and bombs and winds that tried every day to wipe the city right off the map. + +And then the guard was gone. + +Sil liked to say that New Orleans in the daylight was a testament to Pavlovian conditioning, its residents functioned as though there had been no, however brief, civil war, no uprising, no nuclear events out west, no sonic fence just twenty miles north, nothing at all to disrupt their daily business of repairing shoes, selling vegetables, serving food, taking orders and carrying them out. All despite the lack of viable currency, a whole set of new, far more brutal, bosses and, what would seem most discouraging of all, no chance of anything more. No one here was going to find a lover, no one was going out on Friday, no was going anywhere, save where they had to. Sil likened it to an experiment with monkeys he had once read about in I2, where five monkeys were placed in a cage with a bunch of bananas at one end and whenever a monkey went to fetch a banana all the others were hit with a fire hose, which eventually led them to beat the crap out of any monkey that went near the bananas. As time wore on the observing gradually removed one monkey and added a new one who was quickly brought in line with the prevailing logic of the cage -- don't touch the fucking bananas -- until finally all the original monkeys were gone and the new monkeys, despite never having been hosed themselves, continued to carry on with the tradition of beating the crap out of anyone who dared to go near the bananas. + +Dean never said anything to upset Sil's argument, but he wasn't so sure that fire hoses and monkeys could explain what had happened to New Orleans. He spent far more time on the streets than Sil and he had come to find New Orleans far more frightening than anything so simple as people too scared to reach for bananas. Dean had come to believe that New Orleans was evolving, its people changing into something beyond what they had once been, beyond human even. It happened so slowly he didn't notice it at first, but as time went on it was more like the lake of humanity that had once been New Orleans was slowly evaporating away and there was no longer any connection, no river to refill the lake. They were cut off from the world. And instead of that connection to the rest of humanity, there began to creep ing something else, something altogether inhuman, something so indifferent that it frightened even Dean, who had managed to survive the initial battle mind well in tact. But in the years since Dean had watched the something creep up on the city, watched its remaining inhabitants change from reasonable people into something not just unreasonable, but beyond reason. Whatever they were becoming, most seemed, fortunately, not yet aware of it, but it was there nonetheless. What scared him most of all was that he could feel it in himself as well, something that ate at him from the inside. Dean could see it in the eyes of others, the difficulty he had focusing on anything, the way people failed to register to each other anymore, the way people walked the streets as if unaware of where they were, unaware that they were not alone. It didn't come all at once, it was not like the shell-shocked madness he had witnessed during the war. It was much slower, much stronger, much more insidious. Even through the bombs and blockade most held on to the tethers to their former lives, the things they had once done. It was why they showed up to guard banks, to walk down the shattered docks and climb on boats, to make restaurants out of ruins and propane stoves, to turn abandoned buildings into homes and bombed out libraries into whorehouses, not because there was a need to earn money, there was no money to earn, but because they had to create something, to do something, to define where things began and ended and to give something of themselves, to themselves. But now... now there was only randomness, a chaotic series of events disjointed and without a guiding pattern, rhyme or reason, just bodies moving through the emptiness of undefined space. After routine broke down, time went with it and in its place came eternity and chaos, and in that vast emptiness the nothingness became personal. Once the chaos had you, it began to change you. Dean watched it every night at work. The afflicted never asked the girls to dance, merely sat in the corners, ignoring the gossip and speculation about the war because for them it was no longer about when the next bomb go off, or even how many would die, but about where, where was your bomb, where was the one with your name on it, the one that you knew was stalking you? Once the emptiness set in there was nothing but you, and the only relief was death. Dean watched it eat people up and spit them out, mere shells walking though the city, until one day they didn't show up to guard the bank, didn't bother to come in for a drink, seeking instead the darkest parts of the city, the lower wards, where the lights had never been restored, where the night was the day and day was unknown... down at the mouth of the river, where all sledge accumulated, waiting for the flood that would washed it out to sea... + +Sil ignored it, ducked his head down and worked. Rebuilding Arbella, scavenging, running the refugees who still thought that freedom was was something you could find in a place. Dean tried to do the same, kept himself busy, but he could feel it creeping in on him, the emptiness. He wondered if Sil did too. Dean never spoke of it to anyone, except the Senator. + +Dean flicked his cigarette in the gutter where countless previous butts already lay, most flicked out the broken window in his room upstairs, and pushed open the heavy wooden doors. Inside it was dark, the room lit only by oil lamps on tables and candles along the bar. Dean had a generator, but rarely used it since Sil insisted on saving all available diesel for Arbella's engines. He could hear the faint moans and occasional more piercing shriek from upstairs where the girls kept their rooms. Downstairs The Library was one large cavernous room, a balcony walkway circled the center of the room halfway up to the double story ceilings. Most of the books were upstairs, falling off the shelves, many of which Dean had used to divide open space into rooms, but the main reading area of the original library, which now served as a bar, still held plenty of bookshelves, the books free to whomever wanted them, though few besides Sil had taken Dean up on that offer. Most of the bottom-shelved books downstairs had been damaged in the various hurricanes that swept through, bringing knee-high water into every ground floor of New Orleans. As a result a musty, slightly moldy smell permeated the library, though most had long sense adjusted. Remarking on the musty smell was a sure way to announce you were new to The Library. Just in front of the main stacks downstairs were a series of massive wooden tables, left over from the days when this had been the reading room. Now it was where Dean's customers sat sipping various home-brewed concoctions of whiskey and beer which Dean dreamed up in the basement, tapping into Scratch's background as a chef to create recipes like juniper beer, mead or barley wine which proved, if not totally satisfying, at least drinkable to the majority of New Orleans remaining inhabitants. Those with money or things Dean needed were welcome to the whiskey Sil smuggled out the Protectorate. + +The former library's checkout counter served as the bar, a handful of stools scavenged from a bombed out hotel made up the bar, though most seemed to prefer the tables, especially the two closest the door where the ceiling was single story and the low light made it difficult to see exactly what was happening from the upstairs vantage point where the girls and their clients lingered to see what was happening below. + +Dean pressed the door shut behind him and surveyed the room. A quiet night, half a dozen men drinking morosely at the tables, no one was sitting a the bar. The lantern light wavered whenever the door opened, painting a wash of shadows across the honey-stained oak walls in patterns that would have made Plato proud. Dean saw only a few of the girls, trying their best to convince the men that a trip upstairs was well worth the money. Most of the girls were still upstairs, sleeping off last night. Or in somewhere in back cooking up something in the makeshift kitchen that had somehow become permanent. Hardly a kitchen, the room had once been the librarian's office, and in fact the man still came in from time to time. Dean allowed him to drink in the back room because he too needed something to remind him of what had once been, to feel that it might possibly be once again. Sil had rigged up an old kerosene stove he had found on Arbella in the man's former office. Sil vented it with piping scavenged from the docks so that Dean and girls could cook without asphyxiating themselves in the close quarters. Scratch's wooden icebox, insulated with straw, an idea he stumbled on one drunken night, when he passed out in the alternative history section and woke up in the pile of books on how to live off the grid, kept things cold. Most of the food came from Dean who traded for it, an open tab at the bar for an open tab at the meat market being the principle form of currency in New Orleans. Dean made his way back to the kitchen searching for Sil but found only Margarite and another girl grilling possum over the stove. Declining their offer of fresh meat, Dean walked back out and began pouring a few drinks, wondering why Sil was late and if it had anything to do with the disappearing guard. + +It wasn't long before the Senator arrived. He was a bit early and carried a large army surplus duffel bag, which looked horribly out if place slung over the shoulder of his, as always, impeccably cut suit. Dean hated the Senator's suits because they made his own clothes look like the cheap and ill-fitting rags they were which gave Dean the same feeling he had had as a schoolboy sent to see the principal, a feeling Dean had disliked ever since he was a schoolboy sent to see the principal. The Senator set the bag behind the bar without a word and sat down, the only one willing to sit on stool and face Dean. It was the Senator's hallmark, a lack of fear or intimidation so complete that it was as if he were simply unaware of what fear was. Dean poured him a some whiskey Sil and the Senator offered him a smoke. The gesture made Dean think of the night he had first met the Senator, some three years previous. The Library was still little more than a washed out building that no one had bothered to blow up yet. Dean and Sil and few acquaintances would gather in the evenings to drink and swap stories, for New Orleans was already a town where gossip and rumors were the only news to be had. Eventually Dean would start selling the drinks and girls would begin coming around, finding that, even if there was no currency, intimacy, or at the least the illusion of it, was still tangibly necessary for survival. But the night the Senator stumbled out of the darkness Dean was merely tired, tired of the rumors and gossip, tired of thinking that at any day now someone would emerge to save them all from their fate. He was out back, smoking under the awning Sil had scavenged from a run up to Shreveport. The bombs had stopped, the gangs not yet full formed, Dean was trying to sort out what would happen. The men in the room behind him were busy toasting the rise of the South, a new autonomous government and a new life for all. Even Dean admitted it seemed tantalizingly close and yet he could not bring himself to believe in it. It was the beginning of the nebulous feeling of dread that would slowly begin to take him over in the coming years. The Senator was walking by, a shadow in the shadows, but he stopped and greeted Dean by name. He asked for a smoke. Dean said nothing, but offered him the pack and then a lighter. Dean did not want any more friends and tried to convey as much with silence, but the Senator persisted, asking after survivors, a girl whose name Dean did not know. He said as much and Senator seemed to give up for a while. They stood in silence listening to the splattering rain echo down the cobblestone alley. And then the Senator asked if Dean had a drink. They went inside, sat at the table and Dean brought over a bottle. By the end of the night he had laid out his entire life, hesitating here and there but almost always giving in on the logic that confessions to a stranger were safer than those to friends whom you knew you would see again tomorrow. And the Senator was willing to listen, something most of the shell-shocked remnants of the battle were quite simply unable to do. But what stuck out most to Dean in his blurry memories of that night was a particular moment when Dean suggested that things were going to get worse, much worse, and he allowed himself to use a word that he had until then been afraid of -- escape. The Senator had grimaced ever so slightly, like a deep ache had come over his bones. His eyes squinted, as if trying to hold something in. He looked unpleasant, not unlike a crouched hawk, jealously guarding his prey. It was something Dean had never seen since, but in that instant Dean knew that if he was going to get out of New Orleans, he was going to need the Senator. Ordinarily the Senator went to great lengths to keep up appearances, it was in fact the genesis of his name, he always seemed timeless, ageless, and totally unaffected by anything happening around him, but in that one instant Dean saw something else entirely, something frightening, but also very purposeful, and he realized that, unlike anyone else Dean had met since the battle, the Senator was in New Orleans because he wanted to be, or more likely, had some reason to be, and more importantly, wasn't the least bit worried about what was to come. + +For his part, though he couldn't remember it exactly, Dean managed to make some sort of an impression as well. From that night on the Senator became a frequent visitor in The Library and Dean came to appreciate the power of the name. Which wasn't to say the Senator was loved. In fact he was almost universally hated, but more importantly, he was feared. Dean liked that he could make otherwise fearless men turn silent and study the ice in their glasses intently by merely mentioning the Senator's name. He liked that Senator's frequent presence had brought an end to the robberies on the street, and that no one ever dared touch the girls without asking first. But most of all he liked that no ever questioned his squatting rights. The Library was his, it was one of the very few indisputable facts of the city. + +If you believed the more vocal patrons of The Library the Senator was a scary man, a remorseless monster who had once killed a man for not taking his hat off indoors, threw his mistresses in the river when he was done with them, killed children for sport, drank blood on the full moon and so on. Two in particular had decided that it was either him or them and so Dean threw them out, picking their pockets on the way to the door. He also spent the first few nights assuring the girls that the mistress rumor was nothing more. And in an effort to distill the rumors surrounding him, Dean took to wearing a hat whenever he was behind the bar while Senator was there, which inadvertently added to his own stature.... + +Tonight the Senator sipped slowly, blowing smoke rings in the stagnant air. + +The guard is gone. Dean mumbled as he wiped the bar down for the tenth time. + +The senator glanced toward the door. Make you nervous? + +A little. + +Eventually they'll all end up gone... + +Dean nodded. I know. Just don't like to notice it. + +Ignorance is just ignorance. + +Dean switched the subject. What's in the bag? + +The Senator smiled. Something for Sil. + +The... + +As a matter of fact, yes. + +Wow. Dean walked over and picked up the bag. It's not very heavy. + +No. It's not very big either. + +Dean peaked in the bag and saw a packet of white paper, he moved it aside, glancing at the Senator questioningly. + +He chuckled. Instructions. + +Really? + +It comes straight from a Naval yard in New York. Sil was right, the Protectorate has quite a few of these. Big ones too. they're replacing their nuclear subs with these, well, much bigger versions of it. + +Dean tucked the plastic wrapped instruction back on top of the tangle of wired and circuit boards. So now Sil has everything he needs... + +I guess so. The Senator pushed his empty glass forward and Dean refilled it. + +You going to leave? + +Dean sighed. Been planning to... He started to wipe down the counter again. But what are they, he gestured upstairs with the rag in his hand, what are they going to do? + +The Senator smiled. That's the bit the preachers never mention.. If all you know are sinners, why would you want to go to heaven? That's why the only angle is to convert you and let you convert everyone you know. + +Dean laughed. Well, I don't know that it ranks up there with salvation of the soul, but i have, despite my best judgment, managed to become somewhat attached to our particular version of hell... + +Where are they going to go? + +Don't really know. South I guess. Sil claims there's an Ameritown somewhere down in El Norte, Old Nicaragua I think. He was there once, before... + +And then what? + +I dunno... stop worrying about when the next bomb is going to come? + +The Senator swirled his drink. Sounds boring. He smiled and threw the whiskey back down his throat. + + + * * * + +Sil stood in the middle of the office surveying the ruins. The file cabinet had cut his hand when it tipped it over and blood was running down his fingers. He flit the old oil lantern stumbled back out to the truck. He dug through the glove box in search of a bandage, but found only a dirty rag which he twisted around his hand to staunch the bleeding. With other hand he pulled out an old bottle of lorazapram and broke one of the pills in half. Sil could hear the faint sounds of sobbing. He brought the lantern over the boat and balanced it gingerly on the gunwale. The girl was curled up on top of the woman whose skin had turned an eery yellowish color. + +What's your name. The girl stopped sobbing for a minute, wiped her hand across her face and stared Dean in the eye. + +No names. + +Dean smiled. Okay. You're right, that was the rule. But no the rules have changed and you're going to have to come with me. My name is Sil. He climbed up on the boat next to her. What's your name? + +Dahlia. + +Dahlia? Like the flower? + +She nodded. + +That's a pretty name. Sil reached down and put his finger to the woman's neck. He moved it around several times but couldn't find a pulse. If she was still alive she wouldn't be much longer. + +Okay Dahlia, here's the thing... we need to get out of here, it isn't safe here. Do you understand that? + +She's so cold. I have to stay with her, keep her warm. + +Dahlia... Sil sighed. Dahlia. She's dead. + +The girls face seemed to crumble, like a high rise crashing to the ground, her forehead scrunched down and her eyes narrowed. Her cheeks trembled slightly and her chin quivered. Sil reached over and lifted her off the woman's body. Her thing arms felt hot on his neck. He set her down on the floor and climbed out of the boat. He reached into the pocket of his suit coat and pulled out a small white pill. + +I need you to swallow this Dahlia. + +She stared at him with red, tear-stained eyes. Why? + +He put his hand on her head and pulled her against his shoulder. Because you need to sleep. + +She pulled back from him, wiped her face and nodded. She took the pill and put it in her mouth. Sil led her into the bathroom and turned on the sink. She waited until he came out and then went in and took a gulp of water and swallowed the pill. + +While she was inside Sil went back over the truck and started kicking the hitch loose. Eventually the cleat moved and Sil reached down, bracing himself and trying to ignore the pain in his hand, to lifted the hitch off the ball and let it down to the floor. + +Dahlia came out of the bathroom and could not see Sil in the darkness. She began to cry and when Sil called out she came running to his side and latched herself onto his legs. Sil stood there, unsure of what to do, looking down at her curly blond head pressed against his side. Finally he knelt down beside her and put his arms around her. She threw her arms around his neck and he picked her up. He carried her over to the truck, open the door and gently set her down in the passengers seat. + +He walked around the other side and climbed in, firing up the engine. While it idled he blew out the lantern and raised the door of the warehouse, glancing out at the street, but there was nothing to see save the darkness. He climbed in the drivers side, backed the truck out of the warehouse door and drove out of town without looking back. After a few miles Dahlia fell fast asleep on the seat next to Sil. They road in silence the rest of the way into the city, the only pair of headlights winding their way through the crumbled overpasses and makeshift ramps that still stood from their hasty construction during the exodus. + +Scratch was already asleep, curled up on his bed in the supply room, when Sil pulled in to his own warehouse. Sil carried Dahlia onto Arbella and set her down in the main cabin on the bed, covering her tiny form with a blanket. Percival sniffed inquiringly at her, but did not actually get up to investigate, taking it on faith that if Sil was carrying someone they must be acceptable. Sil pulled two cans of dog food out of his bag and emptied them into Percival's bowl. After assuring himself that Dalhia was in all likelihood going to be out for some time, he wrote a note for Scratch explaining the situation and laid it quietly next to his sleeping frame. + +Outside it was still warm, and curiously quiet. Sil walked quickly along the river, picking his way through the crumbling concrete practically be memory. When he reached TK street he cut east, but there was no one on the streets. As much as he disliked encounters on the street at night, he found the silence and emptiness even more distrubing and was glad when he finally made it to The Library. Dean looked up as soon as the door creaked and Sil could see his face vidibly relax when he realized that Sil had finally returned. He waved him over and Sil sat down next the the Senator. + +Give me the pricey stuff. + +What happened? + +Long story. I'll tell you later. Sil down the whiskye and motioned for more. + +The Senator was clearly well skunked and sat regarding Sil rather sulkily as he quaffed down another belt of Whiskey. + +I'll have some of the Juniper beer if you don't mind... + +Dean poured a glass and cocked his head at the Senator. The man has what you've been looking for. + +for the first time all day Sil smiled. He got up and moved down to seats, chaking hand with the Senator in the process. + +Dean tell you? + +Yes. + +It's right there. Sil walked behind the bar and opened the bag, holding a candle down inside to look at the contents. It was not at all what he had expected. There were simply a series of wires and cables and something Sil was pretty sure was some sort of servo, but a bit different than most wiring setups he had seen. Not that he had seen many, but after nearly three years of taking apart Arbella and puutting her back together Suil's mechanical prowess was nothing to scoff at. Still, the contents of the bag certainly didn't look like an engine to his eye. + +Not long after Sil found Arbella the Protectorate decided to keep a permanent naval presence just offshore of New Orleans. It wasn't exactly a blockade, official ships could get through, but nor was it something you could simply sail right through without a care. A few had tried. The lucky ones came swimming back. Thus far the Navy had proved unbribable, even for the Senator who had been trying on Sil's behalf, well Dean's really, but nothing had come of it. So for the past two years Sil had been chasing rumors of something he referred to as a pulse engine. Sil didn't pretend to understand the finer points of it, he left that to Scratch, but the principle seemed sound: move a boat without the noise of engine or the eye-catching, sore thumb of a sail. After weeding through some very confusing scholarly papers and a lot of theoretical arguments about water striders and magnets, Sil came to conclusion that it must exist, too much money had gone into protypes over the last ten years for it not to exist. The problem was, right around the time the Protectorate came into existence the paper trail went cold. Everything became classified. According to what Sil could get his hands on the engine worked on a quite simple principle -- to move forward, insects pull themselves inward, contracting and expanding, using the surface tension of water to pull themselves along. Apply a low-energy electromagnetic pulse to that same surface tension, and you get the same sort of movement. After making inquiries among his contacts in the Protectorate and coming up with a whole lot of blank stairs, Sil had had a bit too much to drink and spilled the whole story to the Senator who then seemed to take on the challenge. Perhaps it was because he genuinely wanted to help Sil and Dean, but Sil suspected that it was more to prove a point -- that the Senator really could get anything he wanted. + +And now here it was, a pile of wires at the bottom of the bag. Clearly the Senator could get anything he wanted. + +You know what to do with it? + +Sil glanced up at the Senator but hestitated for second. No, he said slowly, but I have someone who does. Thank you... + +Don't thank me, it's not a gift. + +Sil looked slightly crestfallen. What do we own you then? + +A favor. + +Name it. + +I will. The Senator smiled. Just not right now. + +Well, Sil leaned in and Dean followed suit. I think something's up, and I think, if we can get this thing working, tomorrow night is as good a time as any, so if you want us to repay the favor, now would be the time... + +Oh, don't worry Sil. The Senator winked at Sil. I'm sure we'll meet again at some point. + +Sil didn't say anything. He sat back down at the bar and drank his beer in silence, trying to decided if the senator was making a threat. Sil considered the thought the perhaps the Senator was going to sell them out, tip off the navy about blockade runners, or perhaps he was planning to follow them somehow, or maybe even stow away... what the hell did he mean meet again? Not if Sil could help it, at least not here in New Orleans. + +Eventually the Senator said goonight and stumbled out the door. Sil pulled Dean in the back kitchen and told him Sgt. Thomas' advice. + +Dean lit a cigarette and sat down on crate. You want to go tomorrow then? + +No. Well, I mean I'd like a few more days to pych myself up for this, but what if we don't have them? What if this is out opportunity, before it gets even worse? + +Dean scratched his chin thoughtfully. He was thinking about leaving the Library behind. Much as he wanted out of the chaos, he knew he was going to miss the Library. though they had never discussed it overtly, he considered it a forgone conclusion that the Senator would take over. Maybe not running it, since that was far to mundane for the man, but at least finding someone to look after it, keep it running, make sure the girls were safe... + +It's like Scratch said Sil, it's your boat. you're the captain. You make the call. + +Sil sat down on the floor, snatching the cigarette out Dean's mouth as he did. He took a drag, blew out the smoke and decided that tomorrow night was as good a night as any. + +Okay then. Dean reached for the cigarette and Sil gave it back. What do we need to do? + +Sil considered the question and suddenly wished he hadn't drank two glasses of whiskey in such a hurry. The alcohol brought a deep exhaustion over the his body and his brain felt thick and content. Totally unwilling to organize or plan anything. + +I think I need to sleep it was not a good day. + +Yeah, what happened? + +sil sighed. very long story. Remind me when we're out at sea... Sil stood up, shook Dean's hand and headed home. + +Back in the warehouse Sil climbed aboard Arbella and sat down next to Percival for a last smoke. The dog eyed him lazily, as if wondering whether Sil was going to make him give up some of the stern cushion he currently occupied. Sil petted his head and appaarently satified that the bed was hid, Percevil turned away and rested his head on the scansion rail. + +Sil dozed for a while sitting on the floor, leaning back against the bulkhead. It was still dark when he woke up, stiff and with an insomniac's certainty that there would be no more sleep to come. He brewed a cup of coffee, pouring the boiling water directly over the grains, watching them swirl in the dim overhead cabin light. Dahlia was still asleep right where he had left her, her arm having moved up so that her closed fist was next to her mouth, as if the subconscious portions of her brain had been fighting amongst the urges to suckle or not suckle the temptingly close thumb, which Sil noted was, at least at the moment, unsuckled. He watched the thin sheet rise and fall rhythmically with her breathing, thankful at least the Dean's sedate-and-deal-with-later plan had not anyway, resulted in death. Sil swirled a spoon through his strengthening coffee trying to create a downdrafting whirlpool to suck the grainy sludge to the bottom. He took a careful sip and stared at Dahlia, noticing now that her ears seemed rather too large for her head, or perhaps it was just the way they alone jutted out from and grimy mass of tangled curls that otherwise covered her forehead, neck and cheek such that the girl seemed all ear, mouth and fist. Curious he thought as he tiptoed out of the galley and made his way onto the deck, walking slowly so as not to stir up the grounds at the bottom of his cup. + +He saw Scratch also still sleeping in the storage area, blissfully unaware of the the small copper cylinder surrounded with an awkward collection of wires, that Sil had set as his feet. Sil hoped Scratch would know what to do with it. Sil knew some of which would need to be attached to Arbella's batteries and still others which would need to be wired directly into the hull, but which were which and where they needed to go was beyond him. + +Sil went below again and pulled out the checklist he had been working on for two years. He ran through it in his head, mentally crossing out the items they could get by without. It ended up a short list, just the food, currently serving as the foundation of Scratch's bed, the engine and several barrels of diesel already waiting by the door. Sil sat down at the galley table and glanced around the corner at Dahlia. She was still sound asleep. Sil tried to remember when he last slept that soundly. Years, possibly even a decade. Probably some time before he started working the lab he decided. In any case long before he had found himself here, marooned somewhere distinctly outside the future history he had imagined for himself as a sleeping child. + +Sil came to New Orleans for the sea. Never mind that his idle dream of running a marine salvage company had never really progressed beyond stealing a skiff in the middle of the siege. The bombs went off in Los Angeles before Sil ever had a chance to find a boat and after that it was hard enough to find work, let alone a boat. When the refugees arrived, and the burn wards began to fill Sil got by giving blood in exchange for food. But then the city began to overwhelmed, radiation victims lived on the street, dying huddled in the dark alleys as sheets of skin sloughed off them. A state of emergency was declared, martial law came shortly after it. But nothing prepared then for president Nadar's I2 address which announced that the United States would contract to a more manageable size, congruent with the global realities of our age, as Nadar had put it. No one knew what to make of that phrase. Nadar did not elaborate at first. Sil was out on a tug with Scratch, helping move a dredging barge upriver when they heard the news on the radio. The western states, with the exception of California, which decided, along with Oregon and Washington to form the nation of Jefferson, quickly organized into the new La Rep�blica del Norte, joining forces with Mexico. The press conference was a disaster, right-wing unionists fired into the crowd, someone bludgeoned the Arizona representative to death with a stolen camera. The I2 feeds cut off after that. Nadar welcomed El Norte, called it positive step. Scratch said nothing, flicked a cigarette in the river and continued pushing the tug upstream. Sometime later the Midwest, from Oklahoma north and much of the Mississippi River valley, as well as Vermont and Maine, joined up with Canada. Sil found it amusing that New Hampshire stubbornly declared itself an sovereign nation and managed to remain such for the better part of year before it ran out of money and threw its lot in with Canada. Nadar wasted no time setting up a new government and outlining what amounted to a new constitution for the remaining eastern seaboard, a new nation he called the Protectorate of Reformed American States. Sil heard whispers around the docks, drunken rants in bars, but then serious people began to raise serious questions, none of which were addressed. And the Governor got on I2 and said some inflammatory things, even used the word secede, in what even Sil thought was a rousing speech. Georgia and Alabama were the next to join. Mississippi, caught between Louisiana and the others secessionists tried to remain neutral, but the Alabama national guard put an end to that. And then the tanks came rolling down I10 and the navy appeared off the coast. + +Even when the guns turned toward New Orleans no one standing there with Sil on the docks, watching the horizon as the sun sank to the west, even then no one thought the ships would really fire. There was was a flash from the blockade, Sil thought it might have been lightning behind the blockade, but then he saw Scratch running down the dock, impressively fast for man his age. The sky blinked again and then Sil heard a screaming whistle streak across the sky overhead, he spun around and watched as it hit the Place St. Charles, the building flexed and shimmered in the sunset, the windows seemed to wrinkle and waver and then the entire top of the building erupted into an orange blossom of flame. The second shell hit the Crescent City Residences and by then the crowds scattered looking for shelter. A medium sized shell hit a dock not more than a hundred yards from Sil, the shockwave knocking him clear off the dock and into the water. When he managed to get his head back up above the water all he could hear was screaming. He tried to pull himself up a pylon and was able to get his head up just in time to see a piece of shrapnel tear a body neatly in two, showering the sidewalk with blood and the strange orange color of intestines that he would see several more times before the night was over. He simply let go and fell back into the river. He swam downstream toward the lower docks, looking for a way to get up when he noticed the skiff tied to the concrete pylons that held up the riverwalk. He floated for a few minutes by the boat, making sure no one was watching him and then he simply pulled himself over, started the motor and headed upstream into the falling darkness and out of the raining shells. + +Unlike Sil, Dean had never doubted that war would come. He started stockpiling weapons and ammunition before most people had even wrapped their heads around the nuclear incident out west. He had moved into the basement of The Library and fortified himself with a Kalashnikov and enough ammo to fend off a decent sized army. When the blockade arrived and finally opened fire one of the first shells hit The Library and tore through the upper floors leaving the impression of carnage severe enough the Dean never dared venture up to investigate it. Even later when he acquired the actual building he hired outsiders to clean up and repair the upper floors, unable to bring himself to see the end his friends and former lovers had met. Midway through the first night Dean decided to abandon his well-fortified basement in favor of a more mobile existence, which was how Sil had found him, darting down the street, backpack full of food and a rifle slung low on his waist. He offered Dean a ride out to Lake Pontchartrain, away from the city. The two had spent the few days living like rats in the swamp, finding food in abandoned houses, taking shelter under the trees when it rained and keeping a close eye on their water supply. + +On the second day the wind changed direction and the battleships stopped firing and began to move. Sil and Dean watched from the beach where they were looking for food in abandoned fishing boats. It wasn't until they noticed the clouds bearing down from the southeast that they understood. Ingrid hit the shore full force six hours later, by which time Sil and Dean had retreated back the partial refuge of Dean's fortified basement. They saw few people on the streets, most had long since started walking north. The few they did see quickly disappeared at the sight of Dean's gun. As night fell they sat in the basement listening to the Blackbright boats on the river, headed out to sea to try a counterattack in the midst of the storm. The Protectorate Navy suddenly had to fight off both the hired guns of Blackbright and hurricane Ingrid. + +Ingrid howled for over thirty-six hours. Sil and Dean sat into the library basement, sloshing through the surprisingly cold, shin-deep water, eating canned tuna pilfered from a store a few blocks away and smoking in the darkness. They could hear windows breaking above them, great plates of glass collapsing inward, branches crashed into the sides of the buildings, bricks came loose from porticos and overhangs, wrought iron rails tore off and the water logged balconies beneath them gave way and tumbled the streets. The sky flickered through the grated windows of the basement. Sil shivered and sat cross legged on a broken chair, trying to dry his feet. He told Dean about his salvage dream, even mentioned his work in the lab back in Boston, a story that even as he told it seemed less real than many books he had read. Dean listened, but offered few stories in return, mentioning only that he lived at the Library, that he refused to go upstairs. Their conversations were halting and eery even to them, disembodied voices talking through the darkness with only occasional glimpses of each other through flickers of lightning or orange glow of a cigarette. Toward morning on the second day the storm began to die down, other sounds crept in, Sil and Dean had long since stopped talking, merely listened to the the quiet snap of burning tobacco, the soft sigh of an exhale... The next day Sil went upstairs and collected water from the roof. There were not as many bodies upstairs as Dean had led him to believe. Sil guessed that most of the girls had left before the shelling started, after all, no one had been frequenting strip clubs for some time even before the siege. He did see one girl, a roof beam had crushed her entire skull as she lay in bed, it was enough to make him vomit half-digested tuna all over the last flight of stairs before stumbling out into the wind and rain. He never mentioned it to Dean. After the winds died down Dean and Sil ventured out again, raiding supplies from shattered stores and running into a few other survivors, trading stories and trying to piece together what had happened. Sil went down to the docks and was surprised to find the skiff right where he had sunk it. With Dean's help he got it back up out of the water and bailed out. They cruised the riverfront looking for somewhere to hide it. Sil spotted it first, the half collapsed warehouse that was to become his home for the next four years. The building had slid entirely off its foundations and hung over the concrete, out into the water. As a result there was room to drive straight into the building from the river. Sil did and surveyed to wreckage inside. + +Dean stayed in the basement of The Library, eventually using a bilge pump Sil found in a smashed to bits tug boat to pump the water out and create something that approached livable. + +That afternoon Sil decided that in the midst of insanity it was best to do something sane and so he started a salvage company. + +He used some charcoal he found in the back of the warehouse to write Sil's Salvage on the back of the skiff and he headed out straightaway to start looking for salvageable things. As he moved farther away from it, using the river to get to the canals that led to Lake Ponchetrain, he finally saw the extent of the damage. Half the city still burned, whether from the shelling or the hurricane he wasn't sure. Smoke smeared the southern sky, wind from the tail end of Ingrid pulling the ash down the coast toward Gulfport, Biloxi, Mobile. Offshore, half hidden by the curve of the earth, a battleship still circled in a holding pattern, awaiting orders. + +He moved slowly through the canal, toward the lake, using a bamboo pole he found in the street to maneuver the tiny skiff past storm blown debris and flooded waters. He passed chokes of seagrass washed in from the barrier islands, thick oil slicks that clung to the wood hulled boat leaving behind a lingering smell of tar and gasoline. He moved through raw sewage, human excrement dyed chemical green, floating tangles of shit and clumped toilet paper that looked like limes and made him chuckle even as the smell made him choke. As he neared the lake the stench shifted, beached fish littered the banks of the channel, their white bellies swelling in the sun, clumps of crabs scurry around them, picking at the flesh. A dead egret hung from a V of limbs in an uprooted oak tree, its neck snapped, head dangling lifelessly down toward the water. At one point Sil had to lie flat on his back as the boat slid under the smashed fibers of what had once been a palm tree, uprooted and brought inland by the same twenty foot surf that had forced the the Protectorate Navy to abandon its shelling and move out to safer waters. + +Once he made it through the flooded, debris-choked channel into Pontchartrain proper he started the longtail motor and skimmed the edge of the lake, trying not to leave much wake, headed for the north shore where the debris piles would likely have come to rest. He skipped several promising looking mounds of seagrass and palm fronds, making a mental note of them and nearby landmarks, should no other scavengers find them first. He spent half an hour working his way along the reedy banks, shutting off the engine and poling carefully over the flooded concrete walls, over roads and up into the river fed marshes and wetlands just beyond the lake. He moved through the reeds, watching the cattails bounce in the wind, looking for anything metal, anything glass, anything human. But not too human. Every few minutes he glanced back at the lake to make sure none of the other scavenger crews, which had grown significantly in both strength and number since the blockade went in place six months ago, were bearing down on him. Behind him, across the lake and its fragile, now narrow, flooded strip of sand lay the hulking metal carcasses of two frigates and the one monstrous battleship. Though he couldn't actually see them, the heavy black smoke from the exploded, half-molten hulls still bloomed occasionally from the beach. The bigger scavenge operations were likely down there, out on the ocean even, looking for a huge haul -- gun shells, armaments, electrical gear, anything that might turn a profit back in New Orleans. Or what was left of it. + +After several hours of fruitless searching that yielded only a few oil drums and one mess of rebar and concrete that proved too heavy to move, Sil moved into a shadowy mangrove that he had been slowly drifting toward all morning. The bobbing oil drums clanged against the stern of the boat as he slowed the boat. The clanging seemed as loud as a gunshot in the still air of the swamp and Sil winced. His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness and revealed the unmistakably human color of red. His first thought was blood, he had seen so much of it in the past four days he was beginning to think that it was the only red thing left in the world. But blood did not protrude out of the water. Blood did not have a stern, nor a bow, nor did it leave masts in a tanged mess of rigging wrapped perilously around mangrove limbs. Sil leaned forward on the pole to rest and contemplated what was clearly a ship. She was half sunk, the bow pinned under the roots of a cypress tree, pushed at least two feet below the waterline. He glanced back out at the lake, but the only other scavenger boats were occupied with the debris piles on the south shore that Sil had skipped. He tied the skiff to a tree and sat down to think. He scanned the area, looking for survivors, or bodies at least. Finally, after considering quite a few outlandish scenarios in which he sailed straight out into the ocean and disappeared forever into the sunset, he decided to just take what he could carry and leave the hull where it was. He untied the skiff and moved closer, ducking under the mast and moving along the starboard side of the boat, inspecting the hull, which he noted was aluminum or some similar metal, trying to determine the stability of its resting place. Satisfied that even if she did break free and sink the minute he stepped aboard, he wasn't in any huge danger of drowning, he tied the skiff up and gingerly hauled himself onto the stern deck. He stayed seated, scooting forward on his butt until he reached the midships cockpit and galley entrance. Dark muddy water half filled what he could see of the galley. He stepped down, feeling with his foot for the companionway stairs until he felt something solid. He tested it, easing his weight down until he was standing. He ducked his head down and waited for his eyes to adjust. As they did he saw the glimmering light of another pair of eyes regarding him. Sil's legs shot back up before he even realized he was moving, sending him pitching back across the cockpit, slamming into the metal wheel and debris, watching as the crocodile lunged forward, toward him. Sil scrambled up on the side of the hull, cursing. He rolled off the boat, fell into his skiff where he bounded to his feet, grabbing the rifle, sweeping it across the entrance to the galley. Nothing emerged, but he could hear the animal sloshing in the waters below. + +Sil waited until his heart rate went down, forcing himself to breathe through the nose and counting slowly with each exhale. And then he climbed back up on the hull and slowly down again into the murky darkness, this time proceeding himself with the rifle. But there was nothing, the water rippled as he sat down on the step but the gator was nowhere to be found and Sil figured it was probably just as scared as he had been and retreated somewhere up into the V-berth or perhaps the bathroom since Sil wasn't entirely sure about the design on this boat. Nor was he in a hurry to find out. He climbed out and retrieved his torch from the skiff, he was just turning around to climb back on the half sunk boat when the largest, fattest gator he'd ever seen heaved itself up on the deck and regarded him for a minute, Sil kept the gun trained on the animal and contemplated shooting it for food, but decided that, despite the siege still presumably continuing, he hadn't yet reach the point where he would stoop to eating alligator. Instead he picked up a branch and heaved it at the gator which then scurried -- alarmingly fast -- off the boat and into the swampy water where Sil watched the snaking ripples that marked its path until he was satisfied it wasn't going to return any time soon. Then he went below and began to take an inventory of potentially useful and valuable items. + +He worked by sense of touch mainly, grabbing at boxes that bobbed around him, once nearly leaping back out the boat when he grabbed what was unmistakably a hand. He heaved it up out of the gallery and climbed out to look at a well gnawed arm, bones protruding where they should have attached to a body. Explains the gator, Sil muttered and went back below. Later he found a more in tact body, a man probably fifty years old, his legs bitten down to stumps. Sil vomited twice getting what was left of the body out of the boat. He found a water soaked wallet still in the back pocket, but there was no ID, just a little useless currency, some discount grocery cards and a captain's license issued to one Humphrey Bogart. Sil regarded the bloated head for moment. He couldn't help smiling. Humphrey Bogart. + +He buried what was left of Mr Bogart in clump of reeds, though he had no doubt the crocodile would be back to finish him off at some point. He loaded down the skiff with a much as he could find and headed back to the city. + +Two days later he was back in the grove. Arbella was still exactly where he had left her. Scratch gave a low whistle. + +Sil, this isn't a boat. + +What? + +This is a ship. Scratch wiped his face with both hands as if checking to make sure the skin was still there. He sat down on the bow of the skiff, legs dangling in the water as he packed his pipe. + +Sil sat in the back trying to listen for something intelligible in Scratch's hmms and ahs and other mutterings that drifted back with the potent smoke of the pot and tobacco mixture Scratch was so fond of. + +Eventually he came up with a plan and over the next month he and Sil worked day and night pulling Arbella out of the grove, patching her hull and eventually, on a moonless, overcast night, towed her back to the warehouse in New Orleans. + + + * * * + +Dean lay in bed with margarite her thin leg curled over his thigh, her feet entwined with his. + +Scene with Dean and Margarite + +Dean was the last to arrive, He saw Scratch tying down the mast, Sil was laying the black tarps over the hull and tying them down with rope. He caught the look of slight disgust that registered on Sil's face when he saw that Dean was not alone. Dean thought for a moment that he saw a small child's head poking out of the forward hatch, but he dismissed the idea immediately. + +Give me a hand with this stuff he called Sil. Sil laid down the ropes and came over to help unload the car. diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/newintro.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/newintro.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..299ac08 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/newintro.txt @@ -0,0 +1,87 @@ +It was still dark out when Sil woke up. He brewed a cup of coffee pouring the boiling water directly over the grains, watching them swirl in the dim overhead cabin light. Dahlia was still asleep right where he had laid her the night before, her arm having somehow moved up so that her closed fist was next to her mouth as if the subconscious portions of her brain had been fighting amongst the urges to suckle or not suckle the temptingly close thumb, which Sil noted was, at least at the moment, unsuckled. He watched the thin sheet rise and fall rythmically with her breathing, thankful at least the Dean's sedate and deal with later plan had not anyway, resulted in death. Sil swirled a spoon through his strengthening coffee trying to create a downdrafting whirlpool of current to suck the grain sludge to the bottom. Dalhia's ears he noticed seemed rather too large for her head, or perhaps it was just the way they alone jutted out from and grimy mass of tangled brown curls that otherwise covered her forehead neck and cheek such the girl seemed all ear, mouth and fist. Curious he thought as he tiptoed out of the galley and made his way onto the deck, walking slowly so as not to stir up the grounds at the bottom of his cup. + +The yardlights were still on, though Sil could tell by the glow on the eastern horizen that dawn was on its way. The lake in front of them was covered in the gently swirliing blanket of steam. + + + +Arbella is put to sea with little fanfare, so little in fact that she isn't even cast off to sea, but rather into the passive, forgiving waters of Lake Ponterain. + +Dean arrived early, Sil was still down on the dock perched atop a rotted pylon, squatting low and balancing, smoking a cigarette as the sun peaked over the far side of the lake. The boundary of light rushed across the water so fast it was impossible to follow and then it hit dock, washing over him invisibly, but for an instant turning the old pine knotted boards of the dock a fiery glowing ruby, like embedded jewels, visible for only a fleeting second. + +The boat is ready then, Dean asked when Sil came up the dock, flicking his cigarette in the dingy water below. + +Anything that has a hallway is a ship was the retort, but not unkindly, rather like a mother correcting the erroneous beliefs of a child. + +Sorry, ship. + +Yes, she is ready. + +And then one of the men from the engine shop blew a short, indecipherable song on some sort of horned instument that both Sil and Dean were sure was little more the scrap metal, probably leftover from the painful and time consuming process of building Arbella's invaluable, but difficult retractable keel. No one had champagne, in fact no one had even seen champagne in years. One of the other dock workers mumbled something that ended in godspeed and then Sil climbed about and took the helm. Dean sat down in the cockpit, tested the bulletproof shell they had only recently installed and tried not to feel useless. + +There was no wind on the lake, but they wouldn't have raised the sails even if there had been, Arbella was just fine when Sil bought her, at least sailing wise. It was the engine that had him spooked. + +Vbirth + + + + + + + + +They sat on the rear deck, leaning back against the scasions. I told you we should broken a bottle, it's bad luck not to. I'm pretty sure it said that in that book you gave me. + +No it didn't + +Well, it should have. + +When was the last time you even saw champagne? + +Dean leaned forward and lit a ciragette, he turned his head to watch the approaching skiff. It struck him as a radically underpowered device for dragging about a sixty foot vessel like the Arbella, well, anywhere, but he decided against pointing this out since surely Sil had already enntertained and hopefuully solved the very same thought. Oh, I dunno, he leaned back again, maybe... oh, I do know, at the Clatterhaght Ball two weeks ago. + +That was the one you tried to drag me to? + +I;ve tried to drag you to just about all of them Sil. + +Including the one with the bomb. + +Dean waved the cigarette dismissively, I wasn't hurt was I? One bomb out of some thirty times, that was more than a year ago anyway. And you know all these parties are directly responsible for raising the funding for this very vessel on which we now find ourselves. + +Which doesn't work. + +Which you will fix this very afternoon. + +Hopefully. + +Dalhia stood up and walked back toward them humming a song Dean was pretty sure he knew, but couldn't place. + +Sil bounded up and rushed toward her. Dalhia my dear, never ever let go of the boat. + +She looked up at him curiously. How do I hold the boat. + +You need to always hold onto a part of the boat, otherwise you might fall overboard. Into the water. See this, he held up the thin wire running through the scation loops, it;s a last resort, but it's better than nothing. These cables, he gestured toward his own hand which was holding the mast rigging, these are even better. The whole ship is covvered with stuff to hold onto. So you need to make sure you do. Can you do that? + +yes. + +Hold on to it. He put her hand on the rigging, just below his. When you are on a boat you only have one hand. One hand is for the boat and the other is yours to use for whatever you want. + +That's hard. + +Sil nodded in agreement. It is, but it's easier than swimming for hundreds of miles. + +She thought about it for minute. Can the hands switch? + +Yes, the hands can switch whenever you want. Either hand is always eligiable for either the boat of you. You just need to make sure the boat hand is doing its job before you let the other go. + +Okay. She smiled. + +Sil walked back to the stern with Dalhia behind him, grabbing each thing he grabbed. + +Anyway, Dean resumed, you're coming tonight. + +Maybe + +No you are. + +Maybe. + diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/notes.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/notes.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1288a65 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/notes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16 @@ +Sil's legs were sore from sleeping in the blind. + +Sil spends the night in the tree, hiding from the Reivers and border patrols, the woman is a reiver, but also helps smuggle people out of the protectorate, scene where they remove the listening devices, nanochips? + +on the way to the dock he see a scar from surgical removal? + +Does sil even know about the broadcast devices? + +The Arbella is being funded by a business group that wants Sil (former botanist) and Dean (former arachist leader) to search for new ways to harvest and use algae. That leads to the parties, the excessive armaments on the boat and a bunch of scientific equipment. + +The boat rocked gently side to side as another wake passed under it. Sil stared out the starboard hatches at the moon still hanging low on the horizen, a milky orange orb. + +part about dean's house in the red light district. + + +Nadar grounds commercial aircraft -- the airlines were the first to go because Nadar was, Waiben realized, nothing if not terrifyingly intelligent. Commercial airlines were the lifeblod of commerce and Nadar's only real enemies were those that were more powerful than him -- multinational corporations suddenly neutered by the inability to send their representative where they wanted when they wanted. And of course they caved because they failed to see the end game, they were stuck in a loop where money was the endgame and failed to think for even a second that there might be something far, far more important to money. That power might really, in the end, rest on a much stronger foundation than the simple abstractions of commerce.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/sil and arbella.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/sil and arbella.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cfdcecd --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/sil and arbella.txt @@ -0,0 +1,108 @@ + + + +Half the city still burned. Smoke smeared the southern sky, wind from the tail end of hurricane Ingrid pulling the ash down the coast toward Gulfport, Biloxi, Mobile. Offshore, half hidden by the horizen, a battleship still circled in a holding pattern, awaiting orders. + +Sil set out before the sun even cleared the trees on the eastern shore. He moved slowly through the canal, toward the lake, using his bamboo pole to maneuver the tiny skiff past storm blown debris and flooded waters. He passed chokes of seagrass washed in from the barrier islands, thick oil slicks that clung to the wood hulled boat leaving behind a lingering smell of tar and gasoline. He moved through raw sewage, human extrement dyed chemical green, floating tangles of shit and clumped toilet paper that looked like limes and made him chuckle even as the smell made him choke. As he neared the lake the stench shifted, beached fish littered the banks of the channel, their white bellies swelling in the sun, clumps of crabs scurry around them, picking at the flesh. A dead egret hung from a V of limbs in an uprooted oak tree, its neck snapped, head dangling lifelessly down toward the water. At one point Sil had to lie flat on his back as the boat slid under the smashed fibers of what had once been a palm tree, uprooted and brought inland by the same twenty foot surf that had forced the the Protectorate Navy to abandon its shelling and move out to safer waters. + +Once he made it through the flooded debris choked channel into Pontchartrain proper he started the longtail motor and skimmed the edge of the lake, trying not to leave much wake, headed for the north shore where the debris piles would likely have come to rest. He skipped several prmoising looking mounds of seeagrass and palm fronds, making a mental note of them and nearby landmarks, should no other scavangers find them first. He spent half an hour working his way along the reedy banks, shutting off the engine and poling carefully over the flooded concrete walls, ostensibly charged with holding back the lake waters, over roads and up into the river fed marshes and wetlands just beyond the lake. He moved through the reeds, watching the cattails bounce in the wind, looking for anything metal, anything glass, anything human. But not too human. Every few minutes he glanced back at the lake to make sure none of the other scavenger crews, which had grown significantly in both strength and number since the blockade went in place six months ago, were bearing down on him. Behind him, across the lake and its fragile, now narrow, flooded strip of the sand lay the hulking metal carcasses of two frigates and the one monsterous battleship. Though he couldn't actually see them, the heavy black smoke from the exploded, half-molten hulls still bloomed occasionally from the beach. The bigger scavenge operations were likely down there, out on the ocean even, looking for a huge haul -- gun shells, armaments, electrical gear, anything that might turn a profit back in New Orleans. Or what was left of it. + +After several hours of fruitless searching that yielded only a few oil drums and one mess of rebar and concrete that proved too heavy to move, Sil moved into a shadowy mangrove that he had been slowly drifting toward all morning. The bobbing oil drums clanged against the stern of the boat as he slowed in the near darkness of the tree cover, the sound was like a gunshot in the air and Sil winced. His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness and revealed the unmistakablely human color of red. His first thought was blood, he had seen so much of it in the past six months he was beginning to thing that it was the only red thing left in the world. But blood did not protrude out of the water. Blood did not did not have a stern, nor a bow, nor did it leave masts in a tanged mess of rigging, wrapped perilously around mangrove limbs. dxSil leaned forward on the pole to rest and contemplated what was clearly a ship. She was half sunk, the bow pinned under the roots of a cypress tree, pushed at least two feet below the waterline. He glanced back out at the lake, but the only other scavenger boats were occupied with the debris piles on the south shore that Sil had skipped. He tied the skiff to a tree and sat down to roll a cigarette and think. He scanned the area, looking for survivors, or bodies at least. Could he move it? Was it seaworthy? Was it fixable? Would he be able to stop the larger crews of scavengers, some of whom had deck guns and would fire long before they stopped to ask any questions. The cigarette tasted like newspaper ink. He flicked the last of it into the water and decided to just take what he could carry and leave the hull where it was. He untied the skiff and moved closer, ducking under the mast and moving along the starboard side of the boat, inspecting the hull, which he noted was aluminul or some similar metal, trying to determine the stability of its resting place. Satisfied that even if she did break free and sink the minute he stepped aboard, he wasn't in any huge danger of downing, he tied the skiff up and gingerly hauled himself onto the stern deck and skooted forward on his butt until he reached the midships cockpit and galley entrance. Dark muddy water half filled what he could see of the galley. He stepped down, feeling with his foot for the companionway stairs until he felt something solid. He tested it, easing his weight down until he was standing. he ducked his head down and waited for his eyes to adjust. As they did he saw the glimmering light of another pair of eyes regarding him. Sil's legs shot back up before he even realized he was moving, sending him pitchiing back across the cockpit, slamming into the metal wheel and debris, watching as the crocadile lunged forward, toward him. Sil scrambled up on the side of the hull, cursing. He rolled off the boat, fell into his skiff where he bounded to his feet, rifle already sighted, sweeping the entrance to the galley. Nothing emerged, but he could hear the animal sloshing in the waters below. + +Sil waited until his heartrate went down, forcing himself to breathe through the nose and counting slowly with each exhale. And then he climbed back up on the hull and slowly down again into the murky darness, this time preceeding himself with the rifle. But there was nothing, the water rippled as he sat down on the step but the gator was nowhere to be found and Sil figured it was probably just as scared as he had been and retreated somewhere up into the V-berth or perhaps the bathroom since Sil wasn't entirely sure about the design on this boat. Nor was he in a hurry to find out. He climbed out and retrieved his torch from the skiff, he was just turning around to climb back on the half sunk boat when the largest, fattest gator he'd ever seen heaved itself up on the deck and regarded him for a minute, Sil kept the gun trained on the animal and contemmplated shooting it for food, but decided that, despite the seige still presumably continuing, he hadn't yet reach the point where he would stoop to eating aligator. Instead he picked up a branch and heaved it at the gator which then scurried -- alarmingly fast -- off the boat and into the swampy water where Sil watched the snaking ripples that marked its path until he was satisfied it wasn't going to return any time soon. Then he went below and began to take an inventory of potentially useful and valuable items. + +he worked by sense of touch mainly, grabbing at boxes that bobbed around him, once nearly leaping back out the boat when he grabbed what was unmistably a hand. He heaved it up out of the gallery and climbed out to look at a well gnawed arm, bones protruding where they should have attached to a body. Explains the gator, Sil muttered and went back below. Later he found a more in tact body, a man probably fifty years old, his legs bitten down to stumps. Sil vomited twice getting what was left of the body out of the boat. He found a water soaked wallet still in the back pocket, but there was no ID, just a little useless currency, some discount grocery cards and a captain's license issued to one Humphery Bogart. Sil regarded the bloated head for moment. Humphrey Bogart. Really? + +TK description of the inside of the boat. + +TK description of the half eaten bodies. + +Segue to scene at the bar several days later when Sil meets Dean and get him to help recover the eniter boat, which they do under the cover of darkness, bringing it up the river and hiding it until later when the move it to the half submerged warehouse on the river where it is when we meet sil. + +Also tell about Sil and Dean, Sil getting dean involved with the muling and Dean searching for parts, making contacts, etc. also hint at lazlo as the shadowy hand behind what Sil and Dean are able to accomplish. Also hint at Dean getting Sil deaper into smuggling, cargo from the south, cigarettes, marajuana, weapons etc. + +Sil slipped into the Cathouse via the back door, fairly sprinting the stairs to the abandoned loft area that served as Dean's living quarters. + +jesus man, you smell awful. Dean was sitting on the couch, cigarette between his lips, arm drapped over a woman Sil knew as either betty or Jen, but he was forever forgetting which was her real name and which was her stage name. + +Sil sniffed at his shirt. Yeah, swamps, you know... hey, could we talk? + +Betty rolled her eyes, but got up off the couch after planting a kiss on Dean's face let herself out. + +She's still here? + +I told you, she had nowhere else to go. + +She does know that there's like war happening out there? + +She does. Dean leaned forward, so what's up. + +I found something. A boat. + +A boat? You already haave a boat. + +No, this is like, a real boat. At least fifty feet long, double masted... + +you found it? + +Well, it's in a mangrove, shipwrecked. Half sunk actually. + +And... + +Well, I think it could be a way out this insanity. + +Really? You know how to sail? + +Of course. Well, sort of. Never anything this big... + +How big? + +I had a fourteen footer when I was kid. Sil stared at the floor sheepishly. + +So you don't really know how to sail this boat you found. + +Well the principle is the same, just a bit different rigging. Sil grabbed a cigarette off the table. + +I thought you quit. + +Earlier today I was nearly attacked by a gator and heaved said gators lunch, a half eaten human torso out of a boat and buried it in the reeds. + +Jesus. Dean threw Sil his lighter. + +So what do we do? + +That's just it, I don't know. If we could bump out the water and get her out from under the trees I could probably tow her back here. + +And then what. + +Fix her. + +Where? + +Another problem. + +how long? + +Depend on how bad a shape she's in. She's alluminum hulled so finding scraps shouldn't be to hard. Probably needs a new engine. + +Deann nodded. I know someone that can help. + +I figured you would... + +His name is Scratch. + +What? + +Well, nickname. He used to work down on the docks, old salty dog sort of a guy. He used to skipper tugs, but he had an accident, was in coma, no workman's comp, took to heroin for the pain. + +You think he's still alive? + +He's the only person I know more likely than you to survive what we just went through. + +Where? + +Well that's the question isn't it? + +They walked downstairs, sloshing through the flooded lobby out onto the street where Sil's dog TK sat in the boat, waiting patiently. + +Twenty minutes later they were skimming through the receeding waters, headed for St Tammey's parish to an address Dean thought he might remember.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/sil and dean at sea.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/sil and dean at sea.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c1ccad7 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/sil and dean at sea.txt @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +About 40 foot....full keel, not a blade. Ketch rig. In steel, good condition...will withstand being grounded on reef. Windvane self steering. And Navigation gear, either sextant with books or a couple of G.P.S' + + + +http://arbellalisting.com/ + +This 1991 custom aluminum centerboard sloop is for sale. Arbella is sleek, fast and incredibly strong. With two (nearly brand new) engines and twin rudders, she’s very maneuverable under power. The rugged aluminum centerboard gives her 11′ draft with the board down, and just 3′ 10″ draft with it up. The shape of the centerboard trunk allows the boat to sit upright comfortably, making it easy to beach the boat and let the tide go out. + + + +Arbella is currently located in Maine. + + + +Arbella was built in Fort Lauderdale and launched in 1991. The builder was a gifted welder, who ran a successful stainless steel and aluminum fabrication business. The boat was then motored to Venezuela, where the mast was rigged and interior work down. The next stop was Trinidad, where the builder/owner lived aboard with his wife and daughter, starting another metal fabrication business while continuing work on his boat. + + + +Plans change, as we all know, and the the owner and his family had to leave Trinidad, leaving the boat on the hard in a local boatyard where it stayed for three years. Before putting the boat back in the water we added new electronics, a rugged 12 volt system with new batteries, a 24vdc watermaker, new cushions, a dodger and bimini, a large hard bottom inflatable and 30hp Yamaha outboard and an Awlgrip paint job. + + + +When we launched the boat again in 2004 and rigged the sails, it was the first time the boat had ever been sailed. During the shakedown cruise from Trinidad to Maine the boat proved to be fast and comfortable. + + + +Since arriving in Maine Arbella has been given new engines and a new 8kw genset, extensive sound insulation, a vibration reducing propeller coupling with a rugged thrust bearing and high output alternators with a sophisticated regulator and battery management system. + + + +Hull and deck are welded 5086 aluminum plate. The hull is radius chined and faired. A bare aluminum rub rail allows the boat to lie against pilings or a wall without fenders.Hull plate thickness is 3/8″ at keel, 5/16″ from keel to waterline, and 1/4″for the deck and topsides.The boat is framed on 5′ centers and stringers are on 12″ centers. All framing is 6061 aluminum.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/silinabarwithsomewoman.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/silinabarwithsomewoman.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8bf9898 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/silinabarwithsomewoman.txt @@ -0,0 +1,104 @@ +So we get stuck down here in the swamp water while he gets to go gallavanting around on his link? + +Scratch shrugged. At the moment. + +I think thats a load of crap for what he's paying me. The other man nodded. + +Scratch lifted his hand off his rifle, sighed and rubbed the salt and pepper grizzle on his chin. I'll let him know you feel that way. He smiled. + +I'm serious. + +I'm sure you are. Let's just get out of here and then you can bring it up with him. + +The man nodded. Yeah, the sooner the better. + + + + +I think you hate them because you're jealous. + +Sil smiled. College graduate? + +She looked on the verge of throwing the drink in his face, but she didn't. He watched the tiny muscles flex momentarily in her hand, electrical impulses twitching beneath her skin, tendons tightened, veins bulged, momentarily more pronounced as the muscles around them coiled and contracted, the fingers gripping tighter against the carved sides of the glass. Or probably crystal he thought. He glanced around the room. The high ceilings made the building feel larger and older than it probably was, the white linen of the table clothes was pressed and starched. The cutlery polished. Whoever she was she had money. + +Why don't you do it? Why don't you throw that drink in my face if you dislike what I said? You want to know why I hate this place? That's why I hate this place, because it is so sanitized, so neutered and so utterly out of control. This is the safest place in the world. Where we are right now. No one is going to come through the door with machine guns, no one is going to throw a vial of nanobots in your face when you walk to work in the morning. There isn't any real violence here. And yet everyone is afraid of it. Afraid of the invisible hand out there that is just waiting for the guard to come down, waiting for the other eyelid to slip into sleep, waiting for the back to turn, waiting for the eyes to give up their vigilance, for the ears to miss that telltale warning, the hair on the back of the neck to confirm what they have always suspected, that someone, something thing is coming. For someone they wronged and forgot about, for someone they haven't wronged but holds them accountable anyway, for the one who hates them just for existing, for the one who simply is hate. But they aren't coming. They never were coming. That person isn't out there. There is no evil in the world only things that look different from a long way a way, people misguided, making bad decisions, people trying to gain or to deprive. There may be a couple people, statistical anomalies that think they really are evil, but they aren't, they're lonely and scared. We are all scared. That's what this place won't admit, that we are all afraid, not of the invisible creeping thing the is stalking us but of the very real fears, the fear of what will become of us, what will become of the ones we love.... The ones we love. He repeated the phrase again. That's the greatest fear you know, the fear of the unknown. Lovecraft said that, I believe. And I think he meant it in the monsters sense, he being Lovecraft after all, but the real unknown isn't some thing, it's the very fundamental parts of us -- will we be loved tomorrow, will we be here to love tomorrow at all. If you want to be afraid of something be afraid of that. That will keep you alive in the middle of everything else. Every other fear simply passes over you, you look it in the eye and you either flinch or you don't. Sometimes you flinch and it passes anyway. Other times you do not flinch and it backs off only to let the fear of consequences come in behind it, the rear guard, the fear that because you did not flinch, because you remained firm in the face of your fears in the face of even violence upon you, upon someone dear to you, upon a stranger even, you face that down and you think you might have some sense of victory, some moment of piece, I looked at it and I did not flinch, but yes, you did not flinch, now what does that mean? Will someone else have to pay the price for your not flinching, will the calculus of fear and consequences come next to your mother, your sister, your brother, your unborn children, your friends, the man or woman next to you who did flinch or who zigged when they should have zagged, ducked when they should have run, run when they should have waited, there are million possible consequences to every action and that is the paralyzing fear of the unknown, that is what stops us from acting, from throwing the drink at me, because we cannot anticipate every reaction, every action puts us again back in the face of that ultimate fear, the unknown, what will happen? It is far easier not to act. + +Sil picked up his glass and studied it in the light before bring it to his lips. The wine was slightly bitter, slightly sweet, not bad, not good. He decided he rather liked it. + +She didn't say anything for a moment, just watched him slip the wine. Everything you have is because of this place that you hate, this place that is you home. You were educated here, you worked here. We have been digging into your background. We know everything about you and we know you hate hypocrisy above all things, yet you are the model of it. Come on Sil, to think the way you think, to believe what you believe, you would not believe these things if you did not have the luxury, the absence of the real violence that you seem to think is keeping us from whatever it is that you think it is keeping us from... + +It's keeping you from stopping it. He snapped. + +What do you mean? + +Everything here is a myth. And you're right, I got to see it all, but it is built on the backs of ghosts, of sacrifices, of people who were not as lucky as me. Or you. Yes. I got to see it. He swirled the wine absently and stared at her forehead, watching the lines furrow and unfurrow. I got see the twilight of the empire as the British might call it, or we might call it if we had been able to stomach that word. We watched it fall and yet we're still afraid. Still afraid that we will have to pay for our sins in some unexpected, personal and horrifying way. You don't throw that drink in my face because you would then have to worry about me. Especially me since I am an outside, I left even before the changes, before the decline. Good god what might I be capable of... I probably eat babies. I do eat babies. He smiled. But because that violence has been so far removed for so long you no longer realize what it is when you visit it on other people. You know longer understand what it means to be truly afraid. I didn't either until the war, but even the war was far from here. All you had was images, feeds in I2, no different than the movies that had imagined it for years before it began and so easy to watch as if it were a movie. And you did nothing to stop it. You still do nothing to stop it because you do not know what it really is and until you know what it is, until you have to feel it, I am afraid of you. I do not trust you and I certainly will not work for you. + +She smiled. Do you really think you are just going to walk out of here? That there isn't someone waiting for you just outside? Do you really think that you hold the cards here Sil? We are offering you a chance to survive, a chance to do the right thing. A chance to avert the violence you abhor. I may not have doused you with expensive wine, but I can assure you you would be dead before you got out of your chair if I wanted it that way. + +Really. Sil considered it. And how would you do that? + +Her eyes flicked up to the balcony where woman sat next to a man at another table, further from the chandelier, partially hidden in darkness nearer to the ceiling. They have been tracing your signal through I2, a man is just outside the door of the room you're in Arbellville. He's just waiting. + +Sil laughed. He set down the wine. See that's why no one wants to do business with you, it's why no one is on your side anymore, it's that smug hubris, that belief that, despite where you find yourself outside of this clever little construct, you're still in charge, you're still the one's with all the power. He laughed again. I tell you what, why don't you send in your man and see what happens? + +She frowned at him. You think I'm bluffing? + +No I don't think you're bluffing. But I do know that, wherever we may be right now, I am not in that room you think I'm in. It might look like I'm in that room, but your AI, even the AI that you don't want the rest of these people to know about, isn't half as good as what the rest of the world has so yeah, it might look like the signal is coming from that room, but trust me, it isn't. + +She glanced up at the balcony and nodded. Sil kept smiling at her. She got up from the table. This discussion is over. + +What's wrong, he laughed, the trap didn't work? Is that really why you asked me to come here, you went to all that effort just so you could backtrace the signal and kill me? + +No. I don't want to kill you Sil, I want you to be on our side. + +The secret to my success is that I don't have a side. I try to do what's right. That's it. And I'll be damned if I'm going to let you near anyone I care about. I don't care how many agents you send. + +He ripped off the headset and looked up to see Scratch cooking a can of beans on the stove. The boat was rolling, trimmed against a descent wind, one that was keeping them apace of the swell off the bahamas. + +So? Scratch didn't look up. + +Sil shrugged. That was weird. Like visiting with a lost relative that thinks they know you because they met you once as a kid. + +Scratch grunted. + +Sil glanced around the bulkhead toward the bow cabin. Is Dahlia asleep? + +He got only a shrug in response. Scratch picked up the lukewarm beans and headed topside. Sil slide out of the table, and reached around to turn off the batteries before following Scratch up out of the hatch. It was quiet up top. They were running, moving at the same speed as the wind, which made it feel as if they were not moving at all. + +Did you learn anything? Bean sauce had dripped from teh spoon into Scratch's beard, but he seemed not to have noticed or simply didn't mind. Sil decided against point it out. Clearly we have something they want. Something they want bad. I don't know who she was, but she was way above our pay grade as they say. They sent agents too apparently. Traced the signal all the way back to Arbellaville. + +Scratch raised an eyebrow. + +I know, I'm not sure how they got through the redirects in the Bahamas. They're AI is improving. Or they're outsourcing. Either way we need to go back to being paranoid. + +I was worrying more abou the agent in Arbellaville quite frankly. + +Hmm. Yes. There is that. Assuming it's true. + +We would have to assume that for now... + +Yes, we would. Of course they know we would so it may well be that we're playing into their hands... + +I'd rather play into their little psych games than get ambushed by someone with real guns. + +True. + +They give you any idea what it is they want? + +No. We didn't get that far. + +Something to do with those disks the girl had? + +I assume so, but I can't decrypt them so who knows. We need to find someone who can. + +You think? + +Maybe not. Maybe it's better not to know. + +Why don't we just sell them? If the Protectorate wants them that bad I'm sure the UAS would love to have them... + +We could do that, but then we'd lose whatever insurance they might be buying us right now. + +We've never had any insurance before, why do we need it now? + +We've never had anything valuable before.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/talking about Waiben.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/talking about Waiben.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a3c45af --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/talking about Waiben.txt @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +Isn't this the guy you're always talking about? + +Sil glanced up from the engine andd looked at the vidpaper. That's him. + +And he's the one that you say thinks we can actually move to a higher dimension? + +Not exactly, he thinks he can contact and construct the dimension within ours... that's what the collider was supposed to be about I believe. + +I thought it was about free energy. + +Well, that's a potential side effect, handy when you're drumming up funds. + +So do you think it could have worked? + +No. maybe. Does it matter now? + +Maybe. I hear rumblings that he's in india, still working on a collider over there, has a working one in fact. + +No guilt. + +What? + +That's Waiben's gift, he totally incapable of guilt. + +Waiben and sil did the metaprogramming experiments that eventually led too the protectorate's peculiar form of mind control, Waiben quite to get literal, Sil quit to get metaphorical. he felt guilt, waiben did not. + +Scene with Sil teaching Dean and the girl how to breath like dolphins (lilly page 104) + + + + + + + + + + diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/unused.txt b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/unused.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6df79ce --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/Sil and Dean/unused.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +nothing to do with Algiers. Let those wastes of oxygen have their sewer had been the senator's phrase. But Dean knew that the senator's words were meant for him, not the man himself who it was rumored had taken it upon himself to clean up Algiers. The real problem was no one wanted to help him. Even murderers for hire need to believe that there is no truly chosen anything and that playing field is ultimately level, like a pinball machine, tilted toward the only certainty known to man, but of course open to the occasionally beneficial bump from whomever is currently supposed to be manning the flippers. Setting foot in Algiers it became impossible to ignore the very troubling idea that not everyone believed the world to be a level field and there are in fact far more dangerous desires than wealth.a breed of people that had become referred to as Ivers, something not quite human anymore, something that acted on pure ideas without reason or compassion. And most terrifying of all, without doubt. From the outside it was easy to dismiss them, a testament to one of histories fundamental lessons -- those the really believe they are the chosen ones are invariably never chosen when it actually comes choosing time. Or, in the case of Algiers, they simply tell themselves that, despite the seeming apocalypse it must not be choosing time yet and set about once again to purge the world around them of the things they hate. Yet those who actually passed through Algiers came to a much creepier conclusion, that something here had begun to run amok, something which it do well not to ignore. But most did, tThe truck wound its way through the crumbled overpasses and down the makeshift ramp toward Algiers which had, like the lower wards, become something less than human. Since the sealing off, Algiers had become a haven for religious extremists convinced that it was up to them to purge the elements of the city that it did not need. Behind the weedy sidewalks, shattered brick stoops and crumbling houses lay a people that neither the protectorate nor the ruling gangs of the city wanted anything to do with. And so Algiers existed as a DMZ, no law, no power and no hope. Most, like Sil and Dean passed through only when the had to.When they rounded the corner at Liedft St Dean reached forward and retrieved the .44 Sil kept in the glovebox. Sil took off his shirt and spread it over Dahlia's sleeping head, hiding her from view to anyone outside the truck. It wasn't long before they encountered a crowd gathered in the street, a bakers dozen of men standing in a circle around what, as they drew up slowly alongside in the truck was revealed as a dead and well-rotted black corpse that someone was currently dousing with gasoline while another kicked at the ribcage causing gas and intestinal ooze to bubble out a puncture wound in the side. One of the men turned to yell something at the truck. Dean cocked the gun. Let it go, Sil whispered. I could get at least four before they get to us, Dean brought the gun up near the bottom edge of the window, but Sil punched it and swerved around the crowd, which for the most part, seemed content enough with their current project not to bother with the truck.Dean released the trigger and put the gun back in the glove box.TK description of the inside of the boat.TK description of the half eaten bodies.Segue to scene at the bar several days later when Sil meets Dean and get him to help recover the entire boat, which they do under the cover of darkness, bringing it up the river and hiding it until later when the move it to the half submerged warehouse on the river where it is when we meet sil.Also tell about Sil and Dean, Sil getting dean involved with the muling and Dean searching for parts, making contacts, etc. also hint at lazlo as the shadowy hand behind what Sil and Dean are able to accomplish. Also hint at Dean getting Sil deeper into smuggling, cargo from the south, cigarettes, marijuana, weapons etc.Sil slipped into the The Library via the back door, fairly sprinting down the stairs to the basement.jesus man, you smell awful. Dean was sitting on the couch, cigarette between his lips, arm draped over a woman Sil knew as either Betty or Jen, but he was forever forgetting which was her real name and which was her stage name.Sil sniffed at his shirt. Yeah, swamps, you know... hey, could we talk?Betty rolled her eyes, but got up off the couch after planting a kiss on Dean's face let herself out.She's still here?I told you, she had nowhere else to go.She does know that there's like war happening out there?She does. Dean leaned forward, so what's up.I found something. A boat.A boat? You already have a boat. No, this is like, a real boat. At least fifty feet long, double masted...you found it?Well, it's in a mangrove, shipwrecked. Half sunk actually.And...Well, I think it could be a way out this insanity.Really? You know how to sail?Of course. Well, sort of. Never anything this big...How big?I had a fourteen footer when I was kid. Sil stared at the floor sheepishly.So you don't really know how to sail this boat you found.Well the principle is the same, just a bit different rigging. Sil grabbed a cigarette off the table.I thought you quit.Earlier today I was nearly attacked by a gator and heaved said gators lunch, a half eaten human torso out of a boat and buried it in the reeds.Jesus. Dean threw Sil his lighter. So what do we do?That's just it, I don't know. If we could bump out the water and get her out from under the trees I could probably tow her back here.And then what.Fix her.Where?I think she would fit in the warehouse. Maybe not the main mast, but we'd have to rebuild that anyway...How long would it take you think?Depends on how bad a shape she's in. She's aluminum hulled so finding scraps shouldn't be to hard. Probably needs a new engine... What we need is Scratch.What?It's a nickname. He used to work with me, salty dog cliche. He used to skipper tugs, but he had an accident, was in coma, no workman's comp, took to heroin for the pain. He hired me six months ago. You think he's still alive?He's the only person I know that more likely than you to survive.Where?Well that's the question isn't it? Last time I saw him was about ten seconds before I got blown off the dock...Twenty minutes later they were skimming through the receding waters, headed for St Tammey's parish to an address Sil thought he might remember. put her hand on Sil's shoulder and stopped him to hand over a small bag.Mail. Get it to Cutter, he'll take care of the rest.He stepped forward to inspect its contents -- Mayhaws, dark red and pooling downward toward the trunk, yellow flecked bellies upturned. Still a worthwhile harvest though he made a silent decision not to return to this catch for a couple of weeks, the season was winding down. He leaned over and pulled the cord off a cleat hitch nailed to the tree, letting the tarp fall into the bow and a cascade of berries pitched the skiff forward.Once the pile settled he used the poll to knock the last handful of mayhaws gathered up tight around the trunk, the stubborn ones still resisting the inevitable march toward boiling, the pressure of turning into something they were not. He turned toward the stern and watched the The mayhaws gathered he hooked the tarp back up on the cleat, lufted it gently to make sure that it was in place, ready to catch another week's worth. he delicately wanlked back the length the skiff, tilting the boat toward the stern and causing the crapapple-like objects to begin rolling back, distributing the weight evenly through the boat. Satisfied he moved forward again and sat down on the single plank the ran amidships, though you could hardly say an eight-foot craft really had a nidships, and sat down to roll a cigarette.Then he turned and eased the boat back down the channel, slower now, the bow heavy with Mayhaws and threatening to duck under even the still water of the side channel. Back out on the river the mist was already swirling, a limp water-wrought breeze was playing it off the banks, mixing in wood smoke from the occasional clapboard shacks that poked out of the trees, and out onto the faster middle water where smoke and humid mist because one and lay over the river like a wool blanket as if wrapping up the evening in swaddling clothes and laying it down for the night.By the time he pulled the skiff up on the bank near the boat ramp and back the truck down to the water line it nearly dark. He slide the tailgate down and lifted the bow up on the truckbed, Mayhaws scatter down the tilted slope to the stern. He walked back around and picked up a two by four which he used to lever up the stern and slide the boat, mayhaws and all into the back of the truck. Exhausted and pouring sweta from his brow he settled in behind the wheel and cranked the engine over. The sky in the rearview mirror was already bending from crimson to purple. Ahead the night began to settle in.By the time he pulled off the highway in his own truck, the renecks down the way had two goat skins hanging on deer antlers to dry and the clear beginnings of a fire with red meat already on skewers dripping blood on the trampled yellow grass. Sill was just thinking, I gotta get our of here, which about what he most always thought pulling into the long dirt driveway leading up to the sad tarnished, airstream trailer he currently called home when he noticed there was a strange car in the drive, blocking his path. He pulled the truck up close, nearly touching the bumper and killed the engine. He leaned over to the passengers side and popped the glove box to grab the .45 he kept stashed there when he noticed the out-of-state plates and decided against the gun. + + +stepping aside to let a string of men, chained together with neck irons, their hand bound in front of them, walked on past him. Their were twelve prisoners. The line stopped when the soldier barked a command. The men were dirty, their faces spoke of hunger and exhaustion. Several were bandaged, their hands and feet wrapped in guaze. Only a couple wore shoes, and their pants were stained dark with piss and shit. One man looked up and Sil saw his eyes scan the sky above. There was something in his eyes, a kind of thin cloudiness that Sil recognized from the war. Defeat. The man had given up, no longer cared. Whatever happened now was simply another, however painful, small step toward the relief of death.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/notes.txt b/unseen/Book 4/notes.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dcbe745 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/notes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,14 @@ +Fourth Way is a path of energy and consciousness where a person can generate an evolutionary energy called "Do 48" through a meditation practice called "self remembering" more deliberately, rapidly, and efficiently than the other paths, which have to work harder to produce a small amount of this energy in a more indirect way. This book is based on a series of introductory lectures that Ouspensky gave in London and in other places. These lectures inspired many people in London to form a group there, many of them part of the "intelligensia" of the area, including Orage, Maurice Nicole, Kenneth Walker, and others. Many of the ideas of the Fourth Way did influence the formation of many branches of western psychology and even brain research. Gurdjieff taught, for instance, that humans were "three brained beings" and this idea became the basis of the research into the R-complex (reptilian brain), Limbic system (mammalian emotional brain), and cortex (intellectual human brain) of Restak and Macclain. Gurdjieff also made other scientific assertions that were later verified by western science. The Fourth Way is a variation of Sufi teaching that was related to the Sarmoun community. + + +The hurricane is what saves new orleans from total destruction, the entire atlantic fleet is washed ashore and many of the soldier defect. Sil survives like a rat, playing both sides to his own ends, meets dean in his interactions with the underworld and starts running people out of the new protectorate. Neither side in the end wants him and he wants neither, the true anarchist and somewhat deranged in an edward abbey monkey wrench gang sort of way. + + + +dolphin blue water wave foam sea sand cacti desert green ridges between thorns virticle row thorns like spikes extending in 8 pointed stars astisks writing words lilly warmth in the belly, the fairt twitch of erection, the wind moving over her body, the tickle of haris in the wind, the cool air like a breath ppassing over you. interconnected points of light, geometric fpatterns of light the guides, quit smoking come abck when you are ready this didnt happen for me it happened for someone else the metaprogrammingg jere is all pulled from a book I readthe star like patterns of light like green orbs in the windsield a stop light in the rain reflected like moonlight on obsidion she ran her fingers through the skin of his scrotum kneeding it like warm dough, soft and plaint in her hand + +"Waiben in an airport, the disconnect with Claire, perhaps from having seen her recently (ie the funeral) or perhaps during the relationship but either way the message is that he feels estranged and he's trying to recreate the same scene in india where the second collider is being built in secret.... a big part of the backlash against the "progress" of science is laid at his feet. Nadar's presidency in the second term is built, predicated even, on the idea that the real enemy is rational thought, the obliteration of rational thought will give those (the masses) who misunderstand and hate it the means to create their own warped universe, or culture, where irrational thought is king -- the "protectorate" where there is no need to think or feel for one's self, everything is provided for via religion, politics, sports and other "entertainment"... (also, be careful to delineate between emotion and feeling, the later being a twisting, a flawed interpretation, of the former, which is, unmediated, much closer to what we call intuition than "feeling" which is always filtered through a lens... the interpretation of the raw into the quantifiable is necessarily filtered through the lens of experience which is in turn shaped by the systems which we grew up in -- ie patriarchy, property, right, wrong, etc.... At the same time the presidency manipulates that and uses the buildup of mercury into antennae (via childhood immunizations...) to broadcast (literally, via wavelengths from radio towers) messages that sound, to those who hear them, indistinguishable from the I, in other words, for those who don't know the me, the metaprogrammer that creates the I, the voice of their I is indistinguishable from the voice of the government... the radio towers need to play into the symbolism of that passage, whether through the eyes of claire or sil, the key is the imagery, the digression into wavelengths that lays the foundation for the supercollider, the wavelengths (nee particles) smashed together is at once to collision of literal atoms, but also the collision of broadcast information from the government via the message colliding with the surreptitiously created antennas that receive them, intra-brain... which is in turn the parting of ways between sil and waiben. Waiben wants to literally create a new world, sil wants to wake other people up and show them that the "other" world is, has been and always will be, available to them at any time, regardless of what's happening in their own world (a chance to expound on the power and drive of both the biological and cultural imperative versus the will of the individual -- i.e. the endless struggle to be "me" with the confines of I, which is created by the shaping forces of culture and biology... or, in other words, waking up to hear the words, everything is permissible, but of course that's meaningless if you haven't opened the door to "everything," if you haven't let go of the constructs that created you... also, the gap between the physical, literally smashing two atoms together to create a superfilm, versus the mental... eating... say peyote... to access the same realm... which is more real? why do we as a culture seem to swallow the former hook line and sinker and dismiss the later as mysticism and hallucination... what does that say about us...)" + +Claire and Chaz (TK) travel into northern mexico, the sonic wall goes up, the find the expat community of san miguel de allende and he starting running druges north, driving semis, flyhing light planes, etc, to pay for their living expense and to save money so they can head to india or asia the last sane places on earth.... meanwhile claire gets pregnant. At some point she is in trouble, some problem with the baby... she winds up inside the fence, having the baby which is taken away from her... Lazlo arranges for the baby to smuggled out via Sil... When Sil and Dean, heavy in forgein script... head south their intention is sell the script, to fight the us etc etc, they end with katje on their hands and they ruun into claire, who at first doesn't recognize her own daughter? Is that possible? Or perhaps she does, and they head to... europe to spread the ashes? What about the book? perhaps something in the book drives them to europe? if so what? + +The story of claire in the interim between tucson and new orleans told through the eyes of her reading the book, which is in turn hinting at cycle 2, the storyof getting to new york, the ocean voyage, the lost at sea aspect the impoending doom of wwi, etc etc.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/scifiSil.txt b/unseen/Book 4/scifiSil.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b61580e --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/scifiSil.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15 @@ +Sil carries a sword. a three foot long gleaming length of Japanese cold water steel. He has no gun and only one stun device because he has found, through awkard and dangerous trial and error that most people are strangely unable to connect guns with the threat of imminent death unless the gun is pointed directly in their face. But a sword. Something about a swaord imspires utter terror even before it is drawn out and you can see the balanced edges of the blade and single groove in the steel, which is designed to get blood, your blood, off the blade as quickly as possible. It activates the lizard brain, which in most people means either a tramatic shock condition that renders them in capable of movement, or alternately sends them immediately diving under the nearest substantial object their reptilian reactor judges sufficiently sturdy to withstand a direct blow from cold water steel. Both of which leave Sil free to retreat, which is primarily what he wants from a weapon, a clear path out of the room. + +Right now the sword is secured to his back. Tonight he brought along a japanese karata sword, though there are several others, inlucing his favorite, if highly impractical tk Marias sword, back on the boat. Where Sil would rather be. Anchored a few miles off shore. Where scratch is probably just now starting the electomagentic pulse engne for an almost entirely silent run through the shallow and narrow straight of water that separates miami island from the remnants of the Georgia coastline, where Sil will shortly meet up with said boat and be merrily on his way, a few Ameros richer. If he can find the wagon that should be somewhere out in the utter blackness that stretches out in front of him. Sil has done this hundreds of times. He is no stranger to sitting in the creaking unstable branches of water oak just as he is now, scanning the remnants of the freeway with night vision googles, waiting. Waiting for another crate. It's a kind of regression he knows. His ancestors spent years getting out of tree, eveolving tools, language, fois gras and noosperes all so, apparently, he cold climb back up in a tree like the apes from which he came. It's a routine thought pattern, one he uses to kill time while he waits. Monkeys, trees, descent, savahnna, fire, language, tools, fire savahnna, ascent, monkey. It has symetry. + + + +The noosphere is accessed via tk (scanned imprint things in magazines) originally it also required something similar to pyschadelics but then it was found that propery coded tk, when viewed at the right angle could produce the same effect. The noosphere itself is laregely binary, though Waiben is always working to change that, but the doorways are decidedly not. and there aren't many doorways. It turns out that most people prefer windows, richly detailed, interactive, 3D windows which they can reach into an extract what they want -- an orbiting photomodel o the kids, video of the floods in New York or a pictogram from mom -- but very few, only a slight few in fact, want a doorway through which they can pass into the three dimensional relaity of the noosphere. + +Sil used to write noosphere code. Still does occasionally and when pressed after several beer will grudgingly admit that he owes both his present freedom and Arbella to his strange fortune of having been born in the right place at the right time and eaten mushrooms with the right, if slightly crazy man. + +Sil is off the coast of georgia, picks up a shipment he need to deliver to new orleans, crates. The girl is in the crates. + +Sailing scenes, Sil comes across his nemesis an assholey kind of guy with a massive dual hulled catermeran that he's rigged together using two old small destroyers. It's a floating armada bristling with guns. Sil and Scratch watch it being loaded up in new orleans, or maybe miami, which has retreated with the encrouching sea level rise so that it's now stilt houses and floating building in the middle of a brackish water swamp marsh full of reeds and thickets, with islands here and there, much like okeefenokee swamp. red water like blood. the tide goes out for miles and miles every day. periodic tide waves destroy the city, hurricane pummel it, it is a very temporary place, perfect for picking up cargo that needs to make it's way inside the the protectorate. + +There has to be a city there. it's the mouth fo a mississippi river, the second largest freshwater river basin in the world. There can't not be a new orleans. unthinkable.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/silinprison.txt b/unseen/Book 4/silinprison.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..052e4d8 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/silinprison.txt @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +The grey boots shuffle in a line, splattering up mud on torn pant legs. Sil watches from under an leanto of propped up branches and corregated metal. The rain is deafing against the metal, great sheets of water pound the red mud in front of him. Sil siezes up the new prisoners, wondering absent mindedly how many of them will survive, marveling that this has become only a passing thought. Too much death to count, not enough of it involving him, though as Scratch says, that's probably the secret to your longevity, you don't care, if you cared you be dead by now. Sil grunts, you don't care either I take it. + +No, I do care. I'm just lucky. + +One of the new men has a map. A crowd gathers on the floor of the main cell house. Half a dozen men pour over it the filthy wadded paper, trying to decipher it. Hope gets you killed murmurs Scratch from the bunk below Sil. Sil flicks his ash off the side in response. Finally Sil can't take it anymore and leaps off the top of the bunk landing in the middle of the crowd, knocking down several men before he rips the map from from a young man's hands and steps back out of the circle, map over his head. This shit, he says, will get you killed. He rips the map into tiny pieces and rubs them to nothing beneath the heel of his boot. It doesn't matter where you are. They have TK, they have nano to track you. You can't run, the sooner you accept that they better off you'll be. The men stare in silence. Sil climbs back up into the bunk and lies down again. Thanks a lot asshole, says a voice, Sil doesn't bother to turn his head and see which. + +It's well past midnight when Sil sense the warmth of breath beside his pillow. His hand is already tight on his shiv when a hand taps his mattress. Sil doesn't move. Tomorrow, find me in theyard before we ship out. The breathe fades back into the darkness. + +The next say an unassuming, but reasonably fit young man, perhaps five years younger than Sil, lean and muscular, but thin with sandy red hair and arms covered in freckles seems to appear out of nowhere standing next to Sil as they begin to form up for the day's duties. The mean line up, the soldiers in their exolegs march around, hurding the weak out of the line up, heading them off to domestic duties, after which you either recover or you die. Most never come back from the cleaning barracks. + +You're Sil says the man. + +Sil just stares a head, the man falls into line next to him. + +I have something. I have something that can get us out of here. If you hadn't destroyed that map. + +Sil turned his head to the side and looked the kid up and down. + +It doesn't destroy the nano, the nano is still in you, but it can't broadcast + +We can't use the river, too obvious, too easy to scan. But we follow the river. As best I can tell we are somewhere in the northern part of the territories. Which means we'd have just over a thousand miles to cover before we get out of the Protectorate. + +Scratch rubbed the tubble on his chin. Well, it beats digging peat. And Sil here has been thinking about killing himself for the better part of a year now, so I don't see him objecting. + +Fine. So how do we get out? + +Scratch glanced at Sil. + +Scratch sighed. When Sil first got here, like most of us, he entertained the notion that you could simply run through the fence. At full speed it would most likely just blow your ear drums + + + +The men fall out, Sil a contingant of the rest are marched off to the back of the camp. the sonic fence meant that there was no tangible barrier, from time to time Sil was struck with the urge to simply run west, full speed until he hit the fense then splatter where he may. Thus far he had resisted, but he'd seen several others do it. The men file into a small half cylinder of the building where long rows of tables + +Monkey pens Scratch called them. They were the lucky ones, no hard labor, just programming, most of which consisted of tweaking scripts to parse through encrypted text. First they ran scripts to test the crypto and then once that was cracked, script to find patterns in crypto, script to trace origins, scripts to run scripts all of it could have been automated ten years ago by a single AI agent, but the Protectorate outlawed AI. And it had a lot of prisoners so really, mused Sil staring at his reflection in the screen, why bother with AI? Too much that could go wrong, far easier to just track down your best hackers, send them off to the prison territories and watch the ciphers fall. + +Scratch's group was marched out of the camp, through the fence and down toward the river
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/Book 4/vanityfarLHCarticle.txt b/unseen/Book 4/vanityfarLHCarticle.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..34d8447 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/Book 4/vanityfarLHCarticle.txt @@ -0,0 +1,113 @@ +Compared with the market-driven, killer-app insta-culture of the Digital Age, the new Large Hadron Collider exists in a near-magical realm, a $9 billion cathedral of science that is apparently, in any practical sense, useless. Exploring its whizbang machinery, deep underground, the author probes the collider’s brush with disaster last year—and the secrets it may soon unlock. Plus: More photos of the Large Hadron Collider. +By Kurt Andersen +Photographs by Todd Eberle +January 2010 + +Among the defining attributes of now are ever tinier gadgets, ever shorter attention spans, and the privileging of marketplace values above all. Life is manically parceled into financial quarters, three-minute YouTube videos, 140-character tweets. In my pocket is a phone/computer/camera/video recorder/TV/stereo system half the size of a pack of Marlboros. And what about pursuing knowledge purely for its own sake, without any real thought of, um, monetizing it? Cute. + +And so in our hyper-capitalist flibbertigibbet day and age, the new Large Hadron Collider, buried about 330 feet beneath the Swiss-French border, near Geneva, is a bizarre outlier. + +The L.H.C., which operates under the auspices of the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French acronym, cern, is an almost unimaginably long-term project. It was conceived a quarter-century ago, was given the green light in 1994, and has been under construction for the last 13 years, the product of tens of millions of man-hours. It’s also gargantuan: a circular tunnel 17 miles around, punctuated by shopping-mall-size subterranean caverns and fitted out with more than $9 billion worth of steel and pipe and cable more reminiscent of Jules Verne than Steve Jobs. + +The believe-it-or-not superlatives are so extreme and Tom Swiftian they make you smile. The L.H.C. is not merely the world’s largest particle accelerator but the largest machine ever built. At the center of just one of the four main experimental stations installed around its circumference, and not even the biggest of the four, is a magnet that generates a magnetic field 100,000 times as strong as Earth’s. And because the super-conducting, super-colliding guts of the collider must be cooled by 120 tons of liquid helium, inside the machine it’s one degree colder than outer space, thus making the L.H.C. the coldest place in the universe. + +If all has gone according to plan, the physicists at cern by late November will have flipped a switch, and proton beams in each of two pipes will have started shooting around the ring, one beam clockwise and the other counterclockwise, at an energy level of 3.5 trillion electron volts, several times that of the current most-powerful-particle-accelerator-ever-built. And then, any day now, the L.H.C.’s proton streams will be forced to begin colliding head on, at a combined energy of seven trillion electron volts, producing up to 800 million collisions per second. + +So many years, so much effort, so much money and matériel, so much energy and cutting-edge ingenuity. And yet the wizards at the controls aren’t really out to produce anything practical, or solve any urgent human problem. Rather, the L.H.C. is, essentially, a super-microscope that will use the largest energies ever generated to examine trillionth-of-a-millimeter bits of matter and record evanescent blinks of energy that last for only trillionths of a trillionth of a second. It’s also a kind of time machine, in the sense that it will reproduce the conditions that prevailed 14 billion years ago, giving scientists a look at the universe as it existed a trillionth of a second after the big bang. The goal—and it’s a hope, a dream, a set of strong suspicions, rather than a certainty—is to achieve a deeper, better, truer understanding of the fundamental structure and nature of existence. + +In other words, it’s one of the most awesome scientific enterprises of all time, even though it looks like a monumental folly. Or else, possibly, the reverse. + +The Quench + +When the proton beams start shooting around, it will in fact be for the second time. The On buttons of the new super-collider were first punched on September 10, 2008, and for a while everything was going extraordinarily well. The start-up had been preceded by some well-publicized hysteria on the fringes, with alarmists worrying that the L.H.C. would create a black hole that could swallow the earth. (The fear is unfounded.) There was also a cern subplot in Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons, in which Illuminati steal anti-matter from the L.H.C. in order to evaporate the Vatican. (Also not a concern—it would take an impossible amount of time and energy to produce enough anti-matter to make a bomb.) On September 10, the physicists at cern could not have been more pleased. Within 50 minutes of the start-up the proton beams were firing perfectly. Plus, says Dave Barney, a British physicist who has devoted his professional life to the collider, “the world hadn’t been destroyed. So that was nice.” + +But then, Barney notes, “the 19th happened.” By September 19, a Friday, the collider had been humming along for nine days, and proton collisions were imminent. In one of its eight two-mile-long sectors, the power had already been raised almost to the maximum with no problems, while seven of the eight sectors were “commissioned,” or fully activated. The last to go was the sector beneath the French villages of Crozet and Échenevex, at the foot of the Jura Mountains. Around noon the power there was cranked up past 5 trillion electron volts, toward 5.5. + +The tunnel of the L.H.C. is a 12-foot-wide concrete tube, like a very large sewer pipe but lit and air-conditioned for the technicians who must access the machinery. The accelerator consists of 1,232 cylinders, each of them 50 feet long and 2 feet thick, strung through the tunnel like a 17-mile chain of 35-ton sausage links laid in a circle. The proton beams are fired through three-inch pipes embedded in the center of the sausages. Surrounding those pipes inside the giant sausages are powerful electromagnets, which make the protons travel in their great circles at nearly the speed of light. And surrounding each of the magnets—the sausage casing—is a jacket of liquid helium to cool the super-conducting cables. When they’re turned on, the force inside, pushing out against the super-hardened steel container, is equal to the power of a 747 taking off. + +The big magnetic sausages are called dipoles, and the bundled cables connecting each one to its end-to-end neighbor are packed inside copper casings the size of a cigarette lighter. Each casing is filled with solder to make the connection solid. As it happened, that was the source of the problem: one of the copper casings on one of the dipoles had not been properly soldered. And so, around midday on September 19, 2008, the connection “quenched”—which means a super-conducting cable suddenly lost its super-conductivity, turning into an ordinarily conductive wire that couldn’t take the 11,000 amps of electricity. + +Sparks erupted. An intense electrical arc began burning a hole in the dipole’s steel jacket. Pressurized helium turned from liquid to gas and blasted into the tunnel, creating a huge pressure wave. In a domino-like chain reaction, 35-ton dipoles were jerking and smashing against other 35-ton dipoles, some blown two feet off their moorings. + +The main damage was done within 20 seconds. It was all over a half-minute after that. Ten of the million-dollar dipoles were wrecked and smoldering. Twenty-nine more were damaged. The destruction extended for more than 2,000 feet, and smoke and soot billowed through the tunnel. In the vicinity of the accident the air had been instantly supercooled by the tons of escaping helium—which meant that several hundred feet underground, sealed off from skies and weather, snow began to fall. “Some say the world will end in fire / Some say in ice,” wrote Robert Frost, but in this sector of the Large Hadron Collider, the showstopping spectacle involved both at once. + +Up on the surface, in the control rooms, there was in fact no sound, no bump, no rumble. No sirens or Klaxons went off. But in the main control room, someone noticed that green tabs on one of the 300 computer monitors had suddenly turned red: the emergency Stop buttons in the tunnel had been hit. No one had been down there to hit them—the tremendous pressure wave of escaping helium had fortuitously done the job. + +More monitors started turning red. “The beam is gone,” Alick Macpherson, a particle physicist from New Zealand, said to the scientists around him. In many languages at once people quietly muttered “Fuck” and “Shit.” + +A Theory of Everything + +At cern, people generally refer to the catastrophe simply as “September 19.” And they can’t help but think about it as they get ready, more than a year later, to try again. For particle physics, the Large Hadron Collider is pretty much the whole ball game. Its 26-year-old predecessor, the U.S. government’s Tevatron, at Fermilab, outside Chicago—an accelerator less than one-fourth as big and one-seventh as powerful as the L.H.C.—is supposed to be decommissioned at the end of 2010. If this new collider doesn’t produce groundbreaking discoveries, particle physics will have reached a dead end for a generation or more. The theorists would keep theorizing. But without hard experimental data pouring out of the L.H.C., says Jim Virdee, a Kenyan-born British-Indian physicist with the L.H.C., then “particle physics, the whole thing, becomes metaphysics.” +Collider map + +The Large Hadron Collider is the circular structure itself. Four main experiments lie along the path. + +To the rest of us, the refinements of knowledge the physicists are after seem supremely abstruse—so beyond ordinary understanding that they might as well be metaphysics, or computer-generated poetry. The mission, for instance, of cern (short for “A Large Ion Collider Experiment”), one of the four experiments at the L.H.C., is “to study vector meson resonances, charm and beauty through the measurement of leptonic observables.” And how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? + +The history of particle physics is like a Russian nested doll, with each new generation of physicists prying open the next, smaller doll. First, a century ago, they opened up the atom and found the most obvious particles, the nucleus and its orbiting electrons. Then they opened up the nucleus and found the protons and neutrons. Inside these they found quarks and gluons. And so on. The buzzing energy “strings” hypothesized by superstring theory for the past couple of decades—and never observed in any experiment so far—may be the last and tiniest of the nesting dolls, the most fundamental components of the universe. + +One of the paradoxes of physics is that as knowledge has dramatically grown—thanks to particle physicists opening the smaller and smaller dolls, and to astrophysicists measuring the distances and movements and energies of stars—so has our awareness of the vastness of our ignorance. That is, physicists now say that all the visible matter in the universe—galaxies, stars, asteroids, comets, gases, planets, you, this magazine—amounts to just 4 percent of the total, and that the remaining 96 percent consists of “dark energy” (about three quarters) and “dark matter” (about one quarter). But those names are really just black-box placeholders (like “God”). The only evidence for their existence is entirely indirect. + +That paradox—knowledge increasing as uncertainty and incompleteness also increase—is problematic when it comes to what particle physicists call their Standard Model. As the name suggests, the Standard Model, developed over the last half-century, is meant to be the definitive diagram of that nested doll. The model’s premises and predictions have been confirmed again and again by experiments at cern and elsewhere. It seems to explain how all the particles that make up visible matter stick together. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it doesn’t say anything about gravity or dark matter or dark energy. James Gillies, an Oxford-educated particle physicist (and cern’s P.R. director), puts it this way: the Standard Model is what “quantum physics has been all about testing since the 1970s, and proving. But it can’t be right.” What he really means is: It can’t be all there is. + +With the Large Hadron Collider, the physicists think they will find the last remaining puzzle piece that confirms the Standard Model and, even better, get some glimpses of a vast and tantalizing terra incognita. They hope to be able to move beyond the Standard Model the way Einstein moved beyond Newton with his theories of relativity, not by disproving Newtonian physics wholesale but by correcting and expanding upon it. + +In other words, the L.H.C. is a machine that will really justify itself only if it enables paradigm-shifting breakthroughs. “I hope there will be many eureka moments,” says Fabiola Gianotti, a physicist from Milan who heads the L.H.C.’s big cern experiment. (That strenuously reverse-engineered acronym stands for “A Toroidal L.cern ApparatuS.”) “Whatever else,” says John Ellis, a British theoretical physicist at cern, “we should get Higgs and supersymmetry. Higgs is the bread and butter. That’s our core business.” The Higgs boson, named after the British physicist Peter Higgs, who predicted its existence in the 1960s, is the one particle predicted by the Standard Model that hasn’t yet been found. And it’s not just some stray, inconsequential leftover piece but a keystone of the whole structure: the Higgs field, associated with Higgs bosons, is imagined to be a kind of subatomic “molasses” that imparts mass to other particles passing through it. The consensus at cern is that it will probably take a few years to find the Higgs. (A pair of physicists have suggested, winsomely and implausibly, that last year’s snafu was the result of some entity from the future attempting to prevent the L.H.C. from creating Higgs bosons—somehow and for some reason committing sabotage-by-time-travel, Terminator-style.) + +But then there’s the important question of how big the Higgs boson turns out to be. If it comes in at a certain size, that would mean that the universe is stable and not doomed to decay—which Ellis calls the “massive conceivable disaster scenario.” + +But wouldn’t such a finding—stability! a never-ending universe!—be a happy outcome? “It’s great for the universe,” Ellis concedes, “but disastrous for theoretical physicists.” Professor Higgs, who is now 80, agrees. “If you find the Higgs and nothing else,” he told Gillies recently, that would be the worst possible result, “because then we have a complete Standard Model—which we know is wrong in fundamental ways.” It would be as if we’d known for the last century that Newton’s picture of the universe was flawed and incomplete, but never had Einstein or his followers to move us along to a bigger, more correct picture. On the other hand, Ellis says, “it would be exciting if we proved Higgs didn’t exist. I’d love to be shocked and surprised.” That is, he’d rather have the last several decades of conventional wisdom in physics upended than have the next several decades rendered inconclusive, impotent, and boring. + +Apart from discovering (or not discovering) the Higgs, the best odds for a thrilling eureka moment from the L.H.C. would be on discovering that supersymmetry exists. “We have a religion,” an American physicist and cern lifer named Steven Goldfarb confessed one day over lunch, “and that’s symmetry.” As yin is twinned with yang and Christ with Antichrist, so does matter have its equal and opposite anti-matter, and they destroy each other on contact—so that, according to the guiding principle of symmetry, at the moment of the big bang, all the matter and anti-matter should have canceled themselves out, leaving nothing behind. Not only did that not happen—we are among the evidence that it didn’t—but 14 billion years later there is a lot more matter than anti-matter in the universe. Something has to explain that mysterious imbalance, and the betting is that it’s supersymmetry, the idea that for every known particle there’s an as-yet-undetected “superpartner”—and that dark matter consists of those superpartners. There’s a very good chance that the proton collisions at the L.H.C. will create some of those primordial bits—maybe next year, says Jim Virdee, who runs the collider’s C.M.S. experiment, “if nature is kind.” (C.M.S. stands for “Compact Muon Solenoid”—don’t ask.) If that happens, in one stroke “we’ve figured out 25 percent of the universe,” says Gillies. + +The L.H.C. discoveries that would make regular people stand up and pay attention, though, are somewhat longer shots. After the Higgs is found (or not) and supersymmetrical particles of dark matter produced (or not), Ellis says, “we can find extra dimensions, black holes, all sorts of weird and wonderful things.” + +Wait a second: black holes? Yes, though not the kind that alarmists have been screaming about. The doomsday chatter reached critical mass last year when a high-school teacher and botanical-garden manager in Hawaii named Walter Wagner filed a federal lawsuit to prevent the L.H.C. from operating, on the grounds that it might create a massive, world-destroying black hole. This has been a longtime side career for Wagner, who had also tried to stop the Brookhaven National Laboratory from turning on its own, smaller accelerator. But this time, with the help of cable news channels and the Web, he had a much bigger platform, and mainstream media consistently took the apocalypse possibility seriously. The federal lawsuit was dismissed, but it was left to The Daily Show to definitively call a spade a spade and a loon a loon. Interviewed by the show’s John Oliver last spring, Wagner insisted, moronically, that the chance of the L.H.C. destroying the earth was 50-50, since it will either happen or it won’t. + +The detector for another collider experiment—this one beneath the Swiss town of Meyrin—is known as atlas. Particles destined for collisions travel inside the blue pipe. + +The kind of black holes that Ellis has in mind are harmless ones, microscopic and incredibly short-lived, although produced, if they are produced, by the thousands or millions a year. “That will take time,” says cern’s director general, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, and probably only when the L.H.C. is running at maximum power. But if micro black holes do appear, Ellis says, it would be “fantastically exciting,” since they would imply the existence of additional spatial dimensions beyond the three we know. Finding new dimensions would be exciting for us civilians, but, for physicists, it may hold the key to creating, at long last, a unified physics that makes sense of both the tiny-scale forces that hold atoms together and the gravity that pulls on everything we can actually see. Some physicists think the reason gravity is comparatively weak is that it gets diluted as it courses in and out of other, unseen dimensions. If extra dimensions are indeed found at the L.H.C., then string theory—already the leading candidate to become the unified Theory of Everything—would suddenly seem a lot more real. + +Maria Spiropulu, a Greek-born Cal Tech–affiliated physicist who wears scuffed jeans and sneakers without laces (and used to be in a band called Drug Sniffing Dogs), radiates confidence about imminent breakthroughs. When I say that her experiment, C.M.S., is “simulating the conditions” at the beginning of the universe, she emphatically corrects me. “No—we’re re-creating those conditions. We will find out the fundamental nature of how the universe is created.” And even the relatively tentative, low-key Gianotti has little doubt that what they’re about to discover will rank with “Copernicus, Einstein, quantum mechanics. I do expect a revolution.” + +Republic of Wizards + +The quest is as profound as it gets: what are we (and everything else in the universe) made of, what was it like at the beginning of time, and how does it all actually work? The fact that the L.H.C. is a magnificently expensive gamble that has no short-term payoff is what makes it noble and stirring. + +Just before my journey to Geneva, I’d happened to read Richard Holmes’s new book, The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, a history of a group of scientist-adventurers of the late 18th and early 19th centuries who discovered comets and Uranus and Tahiti and hot-air ballooning. As I wandered the subterranean bowels of the L.H.C. and talked with a score of the physicists who have devoted their careers to it, the beauty and terror and romance were everywhere. Just as George III was persuaded by the self-taught astronomer William Herschel 228 years ago to spend an enormous royal sum to build what was then the world’s largest, most powerful telescope, the physicists at cern have their generous patrons in governments all over the world. + +The L.H.C. is the largest machine and, after the Manhattan Project, the most elaborate scientific enterprise of all time, but it’s also, to my postmodern eyes, the largest art project ever built, as well as a quasi-religious undertaking. All sorts of people make pilgrimages to the L.H.C. simply in order to be awestruck, the way they visit Stonehenge or Machu Picchu or the pyramids. On one of the days I toured the L.H.C., I was joined by the art collector Francesca von Habsburg and her 12-year-old son, Archduke Ferdinand; the Icelandic pop musician Einar Örn Benediktsson, formerly of the Sugarcubes; and ex–Sex Pistol Glen Matlock. A quarter-century in the making, the L.H.C. is a 21st-century cathedral of science, where thousands of passionately devoted, hardworking physicists—monks by any other name—have gathered to experience epiphany and revelation, and continue writing Genesis 2.0. + +Many of the scientists, not surprisingly, bridle at the suggestion that what they’re doing is gloriously impractical or akin, even in the best sense, to the uselessness of art or religion. But Fabiola Gianotti’s education was focused on music and literature until she took up physics in college, and she totally gets the art part. “We have dreams,” she says. “It’s like art. Is art useless? Yes and no. The concepts [of particle physics] are so beautiful in their simplicity. And they answer the most fundamental questions. Physics and art are two forms of the same wish of human intuition, to understand nature.” + +About half the particle physicists on earth are on the L.H.C. team, some 7,200 in all. About 1,500 of them are full-time, working and living around the collider. (One researcher, a young Frenchman of Algerian origin, was arrested in October by French authorities, accused of contacting al-Qaeda.) Although the United States isn’t officially part of the 20-country, all-European cern consortium, more of the scientists on site are American than any other nationality. (The U.S. government also chipped in $542 million to build the L.H.C. and its detectors.) As a particle physicist, says Rolf-Dieter Heuer, “you have to be flexible. You have to go where the accelerator is.” Now 61, he spent 14 years working on the L.H.C.’s predecessor, the Large Electron Positron collider, which occupied the same 17-mile tunnel before it shut down, in 2000. After a decade back home in Germany, he returned to cern to start running the place. “They pulled me back in. You don’t say no.” + +Physically, cern is charmingly tatty. It was founded in the 1950s, and many of the original office and lab buildings—unfabulous International Style low-rises from the time when particle accelerators were known as atom smashers—are still in use. cern looks and feels like a cross between an office–cum–industrial park and a university campus—but, except for the casual modern wardrobe (jeans, shorts, no ties), a university in the 1950s or 60s, with few women or people of color, and plenty of cigarette smoking. Because the physicists come from dozens of countries, the lingua franca among the scientists in this French-speaking patch of Europe is English. The streets are named after giants of the past—Route A. Einstein, Route N. Bohr, Route M. Curie—but the big science pursued at cern is of a very 21st-century kind, less a habitat for solitary geniuses than a well-organized hive of thousands of smart people each doing his or her bit for the collective mission. + +I was repeatedly reminded of Arthur C. Clarke’s remark that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” cern may be the closest thing real life has to Hogwarts, an institution where arcane arts amounting to sorcery are pursued by a cultish guild of masters and their young protégés. (Rolf-Dieter Heuer, lanky and white-bearded, witty and wise and a bit stern, makes a fine Dumbledore.) I am a longtime subscriber to Scientific American, follow science pretty closely, and have the journalist’s ability to fake fluency in all kinds of subjects, but on my last afternoon at cern I was exposed as a total Muggle among the wizards. Stephen Hawking arrived to deliver a lecture called “Spontaneous Creation of the Universe” to a standing-room-only audience. For 25 of his 30 minutes I simply had no clue at all what he was saying, none, and it wasn’t because of his electronic voice synthesizer. I realized that the physicists with whom I’d been speaking all week had been radically dumbing down their explanations so that I, a functional fifth-grader, might achieve some tiny glimmer of understanding. + +Another strange thing about the place is the way it’s run. Unlike a college or think tank, at the L.H.C. everyone’s work has the same unambiguous focus: building and running a collider on an unprecedented scale, which involves designing and ordering and assembling millions of incredibly precise, one-off parts from all over the world. You’d think it would need to be governed like a brutally efficient corporate or military enterprise, with strict, top-down command and control. But, amazingly, it’s more or less a direct democracy, maybe the most successful since ancient Athens. + +The venerable Gargamelle bubble chamber (1973), the particle detector used to make the first great discovery at cern. cern’s director general, Rolf-Dieter Heuer (second from left), is flanked by physicists John Ellis, Steve Myers, and Fabiola Gianotti. + +“The model is: Everyone’s equal,” says Gillies. “It’s management by consensus.” The leaders and deputy leaders of each of the experimental teams are elected by fellow scientists to a fixed term. Team leaders are called “spokespeople.” Heuer says governance is a sui generis crossbreed of a private company and a university, with “the chaos of hundreds of university professors. The top guy”—meaning himself, and the heads of each of the L.H.C.’s experiments—“can only convince the other guys to do what he wants them to do. That I find fascinating. Even with a democratic approach, you need to know where you want to go” and provide “clear line management.” So, I suggest, his job is creating for all these independent-minded brainiacs the illusion of democracy? “‘Illusion’ is too strong, but … ” He laughs. “Of course, you are right to some extent.” + +Collisions by Christmas + +During the past year, the efforts of everyone have been bent toward a single task: fixing the collider. The repairs have cost nearly $40 million. The pipes have been cleared of soot. All 9,560 solders have been tested. Thirty of the damaged dipoles have been replaced with the entire stock of spares, 600 more have been fitted with new helium-release valves, and all the dipoles have been anchored to the floor more securely. The machinery is now supposed to withstand an accident 20 times the size of the previous worst-case scenario. + +When I visited this past fall, the hard hats were finishing up, replacing components and checking cables. The astonishing physical scale of the space underground makes visitors gasp and grin and gaze openmouthed. The first vertiginous moments of wonder come at the lips of the concrete shafts into which gantry cranes have lowered giant pieces of machinery, piece by Brobdingnagian piece, into the subterranean caverns. At the edge of one 33-story shaft, a tennis-court-size rectangular opening next to a circular one, I had a déjà vu moment: the shaft is a scaled-up, super-duper-size version of Michael Heizer’s (enormous) artwork North, East, South, West, at the Dia:Beacon museum in New York. + +The heart of each of the four experiments is a detector, inside which the proton collisions will take place and the resulting splashes of particles will be tracked. The detector for the C.M.S. experiment weighs 28 million pounds, the heaviest instrument ever constructed, heavier than the Eiffel Tower. Its centerpiece magnet alone weighs more than four million pounds and took 10 hours to lower 300 feet, touching the floor within one-twentieth of an inch of its intended place, then nudged to within one-hundredth of an inch. The machine for another main experiment, cern, is lighter, but in volume it’s the largest scientific instrument in history, 150 feet long and 80 feet high. + +Passing through the electronic security gates (door opens, enter cage, door closes, stand in yellow-painted square, look at iris-scanning ID device, second door opens, proceed), you begin to feel as if you’ve stepped into a movie. The full-color video-surveillance monitors and illuminated signs—cern and cern—seem like slightly stagy props, as do the French and Swiss flags at every point where the 17-mile tunnel crosses the border. + +Down in the caverns, the experience becomes a full-bore cinematic pastiche. I was reduced to monosyllabic Keanu Reevesian awe, repeatedly saying “Whoa” as I encountered the sci-fi vistas—Ernst Blofeld’s volcano fortress crossed with a Star Wars rebel hangar crossed with Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory and Zion from The Matrix Reloaded. + +And now, once more, it’s showtime. When the L.H.C. starts running again, I wondered, where will the zillions of protons in the beam actually come from? Dave Barney took me for a long walk, down alleys, through parking lots, and into one of cern’s nondescript 1950s buildings. “There,” he said, pointing at a red cylinder that looked like the fire extinguisher I keep in my kitchen. He told me it’s a one-liter tank of hydrogen. I was flabbergasted. A $9 billion, 17-mile-long, unfathomably complex contraption meant to unlock the mysteries of the universe … and that’s it, the source, the wellspring? Yes, he said. “That will feed the L.H.C. forever with protons of hydrogen. It’s all fed from that tiny gas bottle.” + +Atom by atom, the electrons will be stripped from each hydrogen nucleus to create free protons, which will then be beamed into a series of four pre-accelerators of increasing size, one after another, in a kind of loop-de-loop, each pre-accelerator powering the beam up by a factor of 10 or 20 or 30, finally up to 3.5 and—sometime early in the new year—7 trillion electron volts. As the energy increases, the beams will narrow, be steered and focused from the main control room, and then be “injected” into the collider. (I finally indulged my inner 12-year-old, asking one of the top managers of the accelerator team, Paolo Fessia, if I’d feel a proton beam if it were pointed at me. “I’ve never thought about that,” he replied. But he said it would bore a quarter-mile-long hole through any material.) The excitement will peak when the protons start colliding and the machine thereby achieves, in the lovely term of art, “luminosity.” According to Heuer, “We should have collisions before Christmas.” He’s amused enough by his alliterative holiday promise to repeat it: “Collisions by Christmas!” + +The resulting gushers of raw data will be winnowed in real time, both automatically by software algorithms and on the fly by human number crunchers. The distilled one-tenth of 1 percent of the data—the equivalent of 55,000 CDs’ worth of information each day—will be sluiced out to 160 different academic institutions. To be sure, says Gillies, “it wouldn’t be possible without the Web.” How fortunate, then, that at the very moment the L.H.C. was being dreamed up at cern, 20 years ago, so was the World Wide Web, by a computer programmer at cern named Tim Berners-Lee. The moral: cern-style science for science’s sake is not to be pooh-poohed, even when it seems impossibly arcane. + +The excitement among the scientists at cern is palpable. They are explorers who have prepared for decades and are finally about to set off for uncharted regions. They will work around the clock. “This machine will be giving good science for years,” Heuer says, actually rubbing his hands. Just the other day, Karl Gill, a British physicist on the C.M.S. experiment, started preparing his family for the new rhythms of his life. “I said to my wife, ‘I’ll have to work shifts.’ She asked, ‘For how long?’” He smiled a little sheepishly. “Oh,” he told her, “for 10 or 15 years. For the rest of my life.”
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/boat.jpg b/unseen/boat.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fa037a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/boat.jpg diff --git a/unseen/book-notes.txt b/unseen/book-notes.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2aee90c --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/book-notes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5 @@ +"The wilderness should be preserved for political reasons. We may need it someday not only as a refuge from excessive industrialism, but also as a refuge from authoritarian government, political oppression" -- Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire + +I need to get to a bioprinter. I need medicine. + +drop that in the first scene after the woman with the girl dies, something happens to Sil and he needs the medicine maybe. could also serve to introduce the general state of tech in the book. diff --git a/unseen/cover.rtf b/unseen/cover.rtf new file mode 100644 index 0000000..afce510 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/cover.rtf @@ -0,0 +1,78 @@ +{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\cocoartf1038\cocoasubrtf290 +{\fonttbl\f0\froman\fcharset0 Times-Roman;\f1\froman\fcharset0 TimesNewRomanPSMT;} +{\colortbl;\red255\green255\blue255;} +{\info +{\title On The Unseen Train Between Your Sun And Mine} +{\author no body}}\vieww12240\viewh10820\viewkind1 +\deftab720 +\pard\pardeftab720\qc\pardirnatural + +\f0\fs44 \cf0 \ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +The Unseen Train Between Your Sun And Mine\ +\pard\pardeftab720\ql\qnatural\pardirnatural + +\f1\fs24 \cf0 \ +\pard\pardeftab720\qc\pardirnatural + +\i \cf0 \ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ + +\i0 \ +\pard\pardeftab720\li2232\ql\qnatural\pardirnatural +\cf0 \ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +\ +Speak to me again of dormant things\ +\ +\ +on the unseen train \ +between your sun and mine,\ +\ +as the real one between us lies, lays \ +a track of rays, speak to me again.\ +\ +I look at you and through you I see\'97\ +you, which is only a gesture;\ +\ +yet who among us can see the sun \ +by any means other than its own light?\ +\ + +\i -Laura Solomon +\i0 \ +\ +\ +\ +\ +We are hope despite the times\ +\ +- +\i Michael Stipe}
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/new.txt b/unseen/new.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..55f398f --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/new.txt @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +The sea sponges near the floor looked like tropical kaleidoscopes, explosions of color in the faint filtered light. + + + +"The pulse is working, but nothing else. engine wise anyway. desalinization unit is working about half the time. brackish as you call it." + +The boat was rolling as a three foot swell passed through, the bouy slammed against the side. "Okay, well, let's get off the damn bouy at least." + +"You don't want to pull the cable?" + +Sil considered it. It was over 200 of fiber optical cable. But she had been so confident. No one was that confident and that wrong. More likely she was that confident and half wrong. She had a plan B. They always had a plan B. C and D too usually. "Fuck it, we leave it." + +Scratched raised an eyebrow, but turned and started untying the bouy. + +"Wait. Blow the charge, I don't want it just sitting up here. It's not a freebie. I just don't think the cable is clean." He could tell Scratch was dying to know more, but the pitch was making it difficult to stand still and the wind was picking up. They needed to get moving. They needed to raise the sails. + +Scratch shrugged and went below. Sil heard him stumble and swear and then the distinctive thump of a fist hitting a bulkhead. A head emerge from a portal next to Sil's right arm. "Done." + +Sil stood and tossed the buoy over the scansion. The bouy and the tie off bouy began to move away from Arbella. Sil waited until they were around the edge of rdif range and then stuck his head in the portal and called down, "blow it". + +He pulled up just in time to see a small spray of seawater below the echoing boom of the explosives hit his ears. 200m of precious fiber, gone. Fucking fuck. + +-- diff --git a/unseen/outline.txt b/unseen/outline.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..05b5ce1 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/outline.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +in a pure digital world there are no artifacts and no silcon means no way to retrieve them. So the AI programs, as they learn and improve needed some other way to record what happened in the world. Since they could only see with cameras and whatnot, they created recording devices: silcon-based human beings. Real humans, but with silcon improvments to their brains, fiber optic cables under the skin to transmit, etc. + +The girl is a living artifact -- a way to record, interpret, document and store impressions of events, a relativistic recording as opposed to the "facts" that can be gleaned from keyboard input or camera recordings. In the end her job is to record, download the data into the main AI bank, which will then slip between dimensions to live in relative safety, she will stay behind and continue to record and function as a storyteller. + +There are many recording devices like the little girl. One is with Claire. The man in black is the original, organic, analog recording device created by the world to ensure that it is observed. + +The Protectorate knows that AI has escaped human control, knows about the recording devices (there are many of them) and wants to cut off AIs ability to learn, thus stopping it from usurping their power, hence the ban on AI and the people that come after Claire and then later the litle girl. They come after Claire and Waiben because they use AI, but they really come afdter the girl because they know she is AI. She was bieng held in the prison colony after being abducted from the facility where she was created, or where the various improvements were made so that she can interface with AI. The Protectorate was trying to figure out how the AI had done what it had done. (which it did using shel corps to fund research communicating by e-mail and other digital means and covering its tracks with human scientists). Then Sil sneaks her back out of the protectorate which comes after him in new orleans in a way that it never had before. + +Sil figures some of this out in Ameritown, after the same people that hunt him in new orleans come after him again way outside what is ostensibly their jurisdiction. The man in black and dean help Sil escape and Ameritown is destroyed behind them. Scratch (modeled after col tigh), Claire, Sil and girl take the boat along the coast, to meet up with Dean and the man in black. Various adventures on the run and then they slip out into the atlnatic bound for the med. They sail through the suez canal, around the horn of africa and to india where they meet up with Waiben. The girl connects to AI and downloads what is happening just before the AI slips into the high dimensional matrix at the end. + +Related to the no artifacts bit: Sil has a picture of a yound girl pinned above the nav station on ARbella. The (real) little girl asks Sil who it is, (is that your daughter?). Sill tells her he doesn't know who it is, he just found it in an abandoned house a long time ago, he keeps it because it reminds him of everything that isn't.
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\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/research/Untitled.txt b/unseen/research/Untitled.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..37d9fc7 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/research/Untitled.txt @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +Before she passed away, my mom wrote an essay for a contest sponsored by the Arizona Pioneers’ Historical Society about what it was like to live in southern Arizona in the summer before mechanical air conditioning. She won the contest. + +It was the late 30s/early 40s, and it gets beastly hot in Tucson now, just as it did then (although it’s worse now with the heat island effect). + +Her dad, my grandpa, built a house in 1939 with double cement block walls, stucco exterior, and as many windows as he could afford. Granted, once the heat worked its’ way thru the walls the place was an oven, but it was cool from early morning to mid-afternoon. + +They would hang wet sheets on the windward windows. They planted shade trees on the southern side of the house. And most nights they would sleep outside under a ramada made of mesquite branches interwoven to make a roof - hot air would rise and cooler air be drawn in. + +I grew up in this house, and remember the glorious day when Grandpa came home with an evaporative air cooler (AKA “swamp box”) which drew outside air across porous pads of aspen shavings which were soaked with water from a recirculating pump. We were in HEAVEN! Yes, it had a tendency to stink and dump water on you when you walked under the vent, but it was cool. My friends used to like to come to our houe just because of the cooler. In fact, they probably WERE my friends because we had the cooler. :) + +My mom touched on other ways to keep cool - soak your shirt and straw hat in the horse trough, wear them dry, repeat. She also wrote of an early auto air-conditioner; a tubular beheamouth that attached to the outside of the car hung on top of a window and cooled air by spraying water from a reservoir onto a passive (i.e. air velocity driven) circular fan. The sibs would play rock/scissor/paper to see who got to sit under it. The loser sat under it - it sprayed rusty water on anyone in the vicinity. + +Mostly, she said, they just dealt with the heat and weren’t worried if anyone saw them sweat. EVERYBODY sweat. + +Best way to get cool - go to the Fox Tucson Theater for the double-bill, newsreels, and cartoons. The Fox had central air. + +Swamp coolers only work in places with low humidity but are still quite popular in the desert southwest - use a lot less electricity than refrigeration and are good for most of the hot season. + +Re: the McHouses. Yeah - they amuse me too. Around here (west central SC) the mindset seems to be build poorly-insulated brick-over-frame houses, build them as big as possible, clear-cut the land of trees prior to construction (shade is vastly misunderstood these days), then bitch about the $600 electric bills. + +Doc
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\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/research/marieanna.jpg b/unseen/research/marieanna.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100755 index 0000000..5a87e45 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/research/marieanna.jpg diff --git a/unseen/research/notes.txt b/unseen/research/notes.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f338505 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/research/notes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,56 @@ + +It was summer. A dry scratchy heat hung around the porch where Claire sat sweaty and sipping a beer. + +The man wore a black suit that Claire immediately sensed was probably more expensive than the car sitting in her driveway. His face was partially obscured by noontime shadowes cast by the brim of an understated fedora, but when he smiled she could see perfectly straight, white teeth. + +"Claire?" + +"Yes." + +"It is a pleasure to meet finally." + +"It is?" + +"Your grandmother spoke of you constantly." + +" + + + + + + -------------- + +segue to end with the mention of the book and Ambrose's contact info he leaves. start Romanian section. + + +Sil runs into jazz musicians in NEw York at some point. + + + +leap backward in time to Sil and Waiben in Massachusetts. + + +Ambrose dangled hand over the edge of the boat until the river tickled the hairs on his wrist. He straightened the oar against his chest and shifted the hat over his eye to shade the afternoon sun. He closed his eyes and heard the lazy progression of guitar chords echoed by bass notes and strummed in time to asdkfj;k kl;asdfj klj, he could still picture her on the stage, the over-dramatic sweep on an arm, the singular wrechedness of the lines that echoed out of her mouth, the shockingly blond exotica of her hair that seemed to toss about her in the dim candlelit stage and the gruff hand on his shoulder jaring the whole vision to a close. + +From the shore he could hear the occasional bleet of sheep and coppling of horses hooves stamping the dusty road that paralleled the river. He though her riding in some expensive coach, footman atop next the driver waiting to dismount and open her door with a flourish and bow. + +He smiled and fell asleep. The boat continued to drift with the current justling occasionly against the sides of the river where overhanding limbs scratched at the his hat and the bow rebounded lightly off sunken rocks and gnarled watery roots entrapped by last year's flood. + +The noice of the city awoke him from the river dream far before he actually passed beneath the monolithic and slightly charred remains of the parliment building and the wakes of small steamers forced him to once again man the oars. took the lee side of the island keeping an eye out for his mother ont he bank but she appeared to have already left. He lay low against the gunwale peeking up a bit to see if his brothers had come in yet, but their boats were nowhere to be seen and he knew that his brothers had already gone with their father to the Bastich. To drink whisky on the square and wouldn't be home until late with the sounds of breaking glass and cursing coming out of the forested darkness as he had heard late at night all his life. + +He brought the boat downstream past the dock and then expertly dug one oar into the current as a fulcrum while windmilling the other to excute a nearly perfect circle on a dime. He then put his eight against both oars in the relative lee of the dock pausing only to cast the line to the man on the dock who caught it and pulled him the rest of the way in. + +At the Bastich Tavern he found his father and three brothers drunk in the corner he grabbed a mug at the bar and went to drain a bit from each over the surly cries of theif and good for nothing, which like the + +Sil is in nicaragua leading sailing tours fighting the malaria he picked up in India. When the season ends he sails through the canal and over to Thailand and works that season. + +Jimmy owns the bar the opening scene is Claire and Waiben discussing the trip. She goes to say goodbye to Jimmy, who is heading out on a motorcycle trip around the world. She wants him to find Sil. He delays his trip for two days to go to funeral. Claire is the one who goes to meet waiben at the funding meeting. The man from budapest approaches her at the funeral. Says he will pay her way to Paris and set them up with what they need to continue the research. She goes to the funding meeting with Waiben and meets with him to tell him about the opportunity in Paris. + +So we track Jimmy up through Canada and down Russia into Mongolia where he finds Sil. Claire to Paris. Sil is with scratch in thailand looking for the legendary angkor hallucinogen, he goes from Thailand to Europe. Theodore and Isabella across the Cacuses and down through india with the book. + +Sil as an corporate assassin? His connection to the man who visits Claire? + +The man is father to both Theo and Isabella, Theo's mother died and Isabella's father died and the man takes care of both. They end up marrying and Theo and Isabella still fall in love. That's gross, but hey it happens. + + 2-piece sequin decorated heavy cotton lace over silk satin, black chiffon flounces, velvet ribbon trim & diamante brooch on wired black velvet cockade, label stamped in gold on black petersham, "Mody i Platji S Peterburg Fontanka u Chernysheva mosta" Translation: "Fontanka Fashions & Dresses St. Petersburg at the Chernysheva bridge", black silk taffeta linings, long skirt train, Sh-Sh 13", B 38", W 24", Skirt L 39"-60", (minor sequin loss) excellent.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/research/qs.txt b/unseen/research/qs.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2721d4e --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/research/qs.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7 @@ +Another of the nursery governesses claimed in the spring of 1910 that she was raped by Rasputin. Maria Ivanovna Vishnyakova had at first been a devotee of Rasputin, but later was disillusioned by him. The empress refused to believe Vishnyakova "and said that everything Rasputin does is holy." Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna was told that Vishnyakova's claim had been immediately investigated, but "they caught the young woman in bed with a Cossack of the Imperial Guard." Vishnyakova was dismissed from her post in 1913.[25] + +It was whispered in society that Rasputin had seduced not only the Tsarina but also the four grand duchesses.[26] Rasputin had released ardent letters written to him by the Tsarina and the four grand duchesses. The letters circulated throughout society, fueling the rumors. Pornographic cartoons also circulated that depicted Rasputin having sexual relations with the empress, with her four daughters and Anna Vyrubova nude in the background.[27] Nicholas ordered Rasputin to leave St. Petersburg for a time, much to Alexandra's displeasure, and Rasputin went on a pilgrimage to Palestine.[28] Despite the scandal, the imperial family's association with Rasputin continued until Rasputin was murdered on December 17, 1916. "Our Friend is so contented with our girlies, says they have gone through heavy 'courses' for their age and their souls have much developed," Alexandra wrote to Nicholas on December 6, 1916.[29] In his memoirs, A. A. Mordvinov reported that the four grand duchesses appeared "cold and visibly terribly upset" by Rasputin's death and sat "huddled up closely together" on a sofa in one of their bedrooms on the night they received the news. Mordvinov reported that the young women were in a gloomy mood and seemed to sense the political upheaval that was about to be unleashed.[30] Rasputin was buried with an icon signed on its reverse side by Maria, her sisters, and mother. Maria attended Rasputin's funeral on December 21, 1916 and her family planned to build a church over his grave site.[31] + + + +
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Orion is the most splendid of constellations, befitting a character who was in legend the tallest and most handsome of men. His right arm and left foot are marked by the brilliant stars Betelgeuse and Rigel, with a distinctive line of three stars forming his belt. No other constellation more accurately represents the figure of a man, says Germanicus Caesar.
Manilius calls it golden Orion and the mightiest of constellations, and exaggerates its brilliance by saying that, when Orion rises, night feigns the brightness of day and folds its dusky wings. Manilius describes Orion as stretching his arms over a vast expanse of sky and rising to the stars with no less huge a stride. In fact, Orion is not an exceptionally large constellation, ranking only 26th in size (smaller, for instance, than Perseus according to the modern constellation boundaries), but the brilliance of its stars gives it the illusion of being much larger.
Orion is also one of the most ancient constellations, being among the few star groups known to the earliest Greek writers such as Homer and Hesiod. Even in the space age, Orion remains one of the few star patterns that non-astronomers can recognize.
Orion raises his club and shield against the charging Taurus in this illustration from the Uranographia of Johann Bode (1801). Orions right shoulder is marked by the bright star Betelgeuse, and his left foot by Rigel. A line of three stars forms his belt.
In the sky, Orion is depicted facing the snorting charge of neighbouring Taurus the Bull, yet the myth of Orion makes no reference to such a combat. However, the constellation originated with the Sumerians, who saw in it their great hero Gilgamesh fighting the Bull of Heaven. The Sumerian name for Orion was URU AN-NA, meaning light of heaven. Taurus was GUD AN-NA, bull of heaven.
Gilgamesh was the Sumerian equivalent of Heracles, which brings us to another puzzle. Being the greatest hero of Greek mythology, Heracles deserves a magnificent constellation such as this one, but in fact is consigned to a much more obscure area of sky. So is Orion really Heracles in another guise? It might seem so, for one of the labours of Heracles was to catch the Cretan bull, which would fit the OrionTaurus conflict in the sky. Ptolemy described him with club and lions pelt, both familiar attributes of Heracles, and he is shown this way on old star maps. Despite these facts, no mythologist hints at a connection between this constellation and Heracles.
According to myth, Orion was the son of Poseidon the sea god and Euryale, daughter of King Minos of Crete. Poseidon gave Orion the power to walk on water. Homer in the Odysseydescribes Orion as a giant hunter, armed with an unbreakable club of solid bronze. In the sky, the hunters dogs (the constellations Canis Major and Canis Minor) follow at his heels, in pursuit of the hare (the constellation Lepus).
On the island of Chios, Orion wooed Merope, daughter of King Oenopion, apparently without much success, for one night while fortified with wine he tried to ravish her. In punishment, Oenopion put out Orions eyes and banished him from the island. Orion headed north to the island of Lemnos where Hephaestus had his forge. Hephaestus took pity on the blind Orion and offered one of his assistants, Cedalion, to act as his eyes. Hoisting the youth on his shoulders, Orion headed east towards the sunrise, which an oracle had told him would restore his sight. As the suns healing rays fell on his sightless eyes at dawn, Orions vision was miraculously restored.
Orion is linked in a stellar myth with the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus. The Pleiades were seven sisters, daughters of Atlas and Pleione. As the story is usually told, Orion fell in love with the Pleiades and pursued them with amorous intent. But according to Hyginus, it was actually their mother Pleione he was after. Zeus snatched the group up and placed them among the stars, where Orion still pursues them across the sky each night.
Stories of the death of Orion are numerous and conflicting. Astronomical mythographers such as Aratus, Eratosthenes and Hyginus were agreed that a scorpion was involved. In one version, told by Eratosthenes and Hyginus, Orion boasted that he was the greatest of hunters. He declared to Artemis, the goddess of hunting, and Leto, her mother, that he could kill any beast on Earth. The Earth shuddered indignantly and from a crack in the ground emerged a scorpion which stung the presumptuous giant to death.
Aratus, though, says that Orion attempted to ravish the virgin Artemis, and it was she who caused the Earth to open, bringing forth the scorpion. Ovid has still another account; he says that Orion was killed trying to save Leto from the scorpion. Even the location varies. Eratosthenes and Hyginus say that Orions death happened in Crete, but Aratus places it in Chios.
In both versions, the outcome was that Orion and the scorpion (the constellation Scorpius) were placed on opposite sides of the sky, so that as Scorpius rises in the east, Orion flees below the western horizon. Wretched Orion still fears being wounded by the poisonous sting of the scorpion, noted Germanicus Caesar.
A very different story, also recounted by Hyginus, is that Artemis loved Orion and was seriously considering giving up her vows of chastity to marry him. As the greatest male and female hunters they would have made a formidable couple. But Apollo, twin brother of Artemis, was against the match. One day, while Orion was swimming, Apollo challenged Artemis to demonstrate her skill at archery by hitting a small black object that he pointed out bobbing among the waves. Artemis pierced it with one shot and was horrified to find that she had killed Orion. Grieving, she placed him among the constellations.
There is a strange and persistent story about the birth of Orion, designed to account for the early version of his name, Urion (even closer to the Sumerian original URU AN-NA). According to this story, there lived in Thebes an old farmer named Hyrieus. One day he offered hospitality to three passing strangers, who happened to be the gods Zeus, Neptune and Hermes. After they had eaten, the visitors asked Hyrieus if he had any wishes. The old man confessed that he would have liked a son, and the three gods promised to fulfil his wish. Standing together around the hide of the ox they had just consumed, the gods urinated on it and told Hyrieus to bury the hide. From it in due course was born a boy whom Hyrieus named Urion after the mode of his conception.
Orion is one of several constellations in which the star labelled Alpha is not the brightest. The brightest star in Orion is actually Beta Orionis, called Rigel from the Arabic rijlmeaning foot since Ptolemy described it as marking the left foot of Orion. Rigel is a brilliant blue-white supergiant.
Alpha Orionis is called Betelgeuse (pronounced BET-ell-juice), one of the most famous yet misunderstood star names. It comes from the Arabic yad al-jauza, often wrongly translated as armpit of the central one. In fact, it means hand of al-jauza. Who (or what) was al-jauza? It was the name given by the Arabs to the constellation figure that they saw in this area, seemingly a female figure encompassing the stars of both Orion and Gemini. The word al-jauza apparently comes from the Arabic jwz meaning middle, so the best translation that modern commentators can offer is that al-jauza means something like the female one of the middle. The reference to the middle may be to do with the fact that the constellation lies astride the celestial equator. As Ptolemy described it in the Almagest, Betelgeuse represents the right shoulder of Orion. The Greeks did not give a name to either Betelgeuse or Rigel, surprisingly for such prominent stars, which is why we know them by their Arabic titles. Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star hundreds of times the diameter of the Sun. It expands and contracts over periods of months and years, changing brightness noticeably in the process.
The left shoulder of Orion is marked by Gamma Orionis, known as Bellatrix, a Latin name meaning the female warrior. The star at the hunters right knee, Kappa Orionis, is called Saiph. This name comes from the Arabic for sword, and is clearly misplaced. The three stars of the belt Zeta, Epsilon and Delta Orionis are called Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. The names Alnitak and Mintaka both come from the Arabic word meaning the belt or girdle. Alnilam comes from the Arabic meaning the string of pearls, another reference to the belt of Orion.
Below the belt lies a hazy patch marking the giants sword. This is the location of the Orion Nebula, one of the most-photographed objects in the sky, a mass of gas from which a cluster of stars is being born. The gas of the Nebula shines by the light of the hottest stars that have already formed within; it is visible to the naked eye on clear nights.
Ian Ridpath. All rights reserved
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Scott this is the History from Aunt Helen; I believe. How accurate it is I am not sure:
Helen Kennedy was. Grandma Vidas cousin.
This is The Jarman-Sawyer Family tree-(Grandma Vidas Grandma Jarman and before that Sawyer.
Wesley Best Jarman-Your Great Great Grandpa-Grandma Vidas Grandfather on her mothers side. He was born June 17, 1862 in Macoupin county, Illinois, he father was Henry Jarman and his mother was Harriet (Adlaid) Grant.(Grandma wants to know if we are related to Ulysses S. Grant). They made their home on a farm in Litchfield, Illinois for a number of years before moving to Moline, Kansas and then on to Columbus, Kansas where they remained the rest of their lives. Twelve children were born of this marriage with two sons and six daughters living to maturity and three girls and one son dying in infancy. Wesley was a farmer his entire life, and shortly after he retired from farming and moved to Columbus, Kansas he was kicked by one of his favorite horses causing his death on December 3, 1921. He is buried in Columbus, Kansas.(Some tidbits from me:Grandma Stoughton(Grandmas mom) loved her father dearly and for years she cried at Christmas for him. She was closer to her father than her mother. Her mother married two times after her father to which she was very upset about!! I saw Grandma Jarman when she was 92 years old and I was two years old in Kansas. She was very stern!
EMMA SAWYER-JARMAN-Your Great Great Grandmother-Grandma Vidas grandmother on her mothers side. She was born August 8, 1866 in Litchfield, Illinois, the eldest daughter of John Perry Sawyer. She was married to Wesley Best Jarman on Oct. 10, 1882 in St. Louis, Illinois. She was the mother of 12 of his childrn. Several years after Wesleys death she married a Mr. Bueller and after his death she married Mr. Best. Emma died in Columbus, Kansas July 1955 and is buried there.(my sister Debbie was born that year). Grandma & Grandpa, Nancy, me and Ron went back to Kansas to visit and that is when I saw her and Mom was pregnant with Debbie.
Children of Wesley Best Jarman-Emma Sawyer Jarman
1. Bess-Children-Grace, Pauline, Mary, Maxine, Jack and Van. Aunt Bess married Dave Juniper and died in columbus, Kansas.
2. Bertha Viola born Aug. 18, 1884 in Moline, kansas married to Frank Lee Kennedy Feb. 1st 1908 in Columbus, Kansas. Died April 29, 1974 in Long Beach, Calif. Buried there.(I met Aunt Bertha(Grandma Stoughtons sister)She used to visit Tucson once in a while and last time I saw her she took my cousin, Sue and I on a Long Beach harbor cruise. She was gracious, interesting and very smart! She wore a blue suit that day and was very grand looking. She was not sure where the harbor was but I found it at the age of 16 and we brought the boat back to harbor because we missed it!! It came back for us and we all had a good time. Her children are Helen Louise Kennedy born May 31, 1911 in Joplin, Missour.(She is the one that typed this info for the family). She married Richard Eugene Bly Jan. 2, 1937. Children:Diana, Carole, Barbara and James.
3. Eugene Jarman born? married to GraceHolstein Thompson died in Columbus, Kansas on? Adopted a boy named Louis. I never knew him. 4. Ethel-died at 2 months.
Page 2
5. Irene Jarman was born? died in columbus, Kansas. (As far as I know, she never married, lived with her Mom for a long time and i saw her in Tucson also and she dressed very well. She was a career woman; I think.
6. Laura Belle Jarman; born? and married CP Horner and they both died in a boating accident in Idaho on Snake River. A storm was brewing and they were warned not to go but they were all very good swimmers so they took a risk!
7. Addie-died at 2 years old. Grandma Stoughton talked to me about her and she thinks it was pneumonia. She really was happy to have a baby sister. Everyone treasured her.
8. Faye-Grandma Stoughton(my favorite)-born July 21,1898 married William Henry Stoughton born Jan. 7th 1897. Children:oldest, William H. Stoughton Jr(Bill)born 3/9/1920 died when I was about two years old(1951?)He had polio and reuhmatic fever. I think he had conjuctive heart failure. Then Grandma Vida; Emma Jean Stoughton born Sept 6, 1921-Marjorie Stoughton(Aunt Marjie) Jan 9, 1922.Betty Lou Stoughton born?James Willis Stoughton; Raymond Dale Stoughton born in May 7, 1928 and jack Lee Stoughton(Feb 27, ?)Uncle Jack.
9. Lena-died at two years old
10. Mildred Jarman was born? married Tom Jenny. I visited her many times in Columbus, Kansas on her farm and in Tucson when she visited Grandma.
11. Ralph-died at two months
12. James Howard Jarman born ? 1913 married to Aunt Nora. (I knew them really well). Neat people! Brian and Eric and I stayed with them in Ft. Scott, Kansas. We had a family reunion of the Stoughtons etc in Columbus, Kansas in 1982 or so and I took the boys and they put us up for a night. Children; Joanna and Sharon. I met Sharon also.
Jarman-Grant
Henry Jarman was born (possible in North Carolina) and maried Harriet Adlaid Grant and they lived in Macoupin county, Illinois on a farm.
Children of Henry Jarman and Harriet Grant Jarman
1. Wesley born June 17, 1862 Macoupin county, Ill. Married Emma Sawyer Oct 19, 1882 in St. Louis, Ill. 12 children 2. Lystra 3.George 4. Ira 5.Bell Jarman-Grant 6. Ida jarman-Groover 7.Jane Jarman-Sexton lived in Parsons, Kansas
Pg. 3
John Perry Sawyer-Sarah jane Sawyer-Sawyer(cousins marry, I believe) was born in Stanton, Macoupin county, Ill. Sept 3, 1842. His father was BHSawyer and his mother was Ann Scroggin. He enlisted as a private in Company 1-59th Regt illinois Vol. Infantry, August 16, 1861 and was honorable discharged Feb. 18, 1863. he married Sarah Jane Sawyer Oct 1, 1863 in Macoupin county, Ill. To this union ten children were born, six living to maturity and four dying in infancy. They moved to Moline, Kansas in 1884 where most of the children completed their education. His wife, Sarah jane, died in June 17, 1898 when a shotgun accidentally was discharged. he moved shortly after that to Stuttgart, Arkansas and on May 1, 1900 he married Mrs. Fannie Gibson. He died and is buried there on may 20, 1913.
Sarah jane Sawyer-Sawyer was born Nov. 28, 1846 in Stanton, Ill. Her father was Amos Sawyer and her mother was Delacy--Sawyer. She married John Perry Sawyer Oct. 1, 1863 and had ten of his children. Six living to maturity. her family was from the south and when the Civil War broke out several of her brothers joined the Union Army and several the Confederate Army. Her father was in sympathy with the south, so never spoke to the two older boys who joined the Union Army. they were both killed. When the Gold Rush to Pikes Peak was held. Her father Amos Sawyer furnished five wagons and each wagon had 5 span of mules the best he could buy. He just about went broke on this adventure. He had been a prosperous farmer and this story was told to Elsie Sawyer when she was a little girl, by a neighbor, Uncle Dick Sturgess in Moline, who used to live near her grandparents, but she couldnt remember where. Sarah Jane and john moved their family to Moline, Kansas in 1884. She dies June 17, 1898 when a shotgun was accidentally discharged.
Children of John Perry Sawyer and Sarah jane Sawyer-Sawyer
1. Emma Sawyer was born 8/8/1866 in Litchfield, Ill Married to Wesley Best Jarman 10/10/1882. Eight living children. Four died in infancy. Died in columbus, Kansas. 1955. 2nd marriage-Mr. Best 3rd marriage-Mr. Bueler
2. Elias born? Married? Children-Maud died in Oregon.
3. Laura was born? Married to Lou Collier died in Moline; Children:Bruce
4. Anna was born 9/26/1875 in Staunton, Ill. Died March 26, 1967 in Sedan Kansas. Married to frank Dollinger. No children.
5. Ben born? Married to Katie Kanabe. Kenneth only son.Married second time to? Died?
6. Elsie Louise born Sept 23, 1888 in Moline, Kansas
Pg. 4
BH Sawyer was born? Probably in the south. John Perry Sawyer is the only child we have any record of his marriage to Ann Scroggin.
Ann Scroggin was bron? Her mother was Mary Tatum. Ann was one of the five Scroggin children and then her mother married a Mr. Thurston after Scroggin died and she had one more child by Thurston. The Thurston cild was about the same age as John Perry Sawyer. (This informaton was in a letter written to Aunt Anna by Emma Jarman many year ago).
Now this is the couple that I think the story about their both smoking their pipes out on the porch was told. Anyway we have the cutest picture of a pioneer famr couple that is John Perry Sawyers father and mother.
Children of B.H. Sawyer and Ann Scroggin Sawyer
1. John Perry Sawyer was born in Staunton, Ill(Macoupin county) 9/3/1842. Married Sarah Jane Sawyer. Died May 20, 1913.
Amos Sawyer-was born? He married Delacy-----Sawyer on ? in?. They moved their family to Staunton, Ill on? where Delacy gave birth to ten of his children. Dying in childbirth when Sarah Jane was ten years old-about 1856. he wa married again and his second wife had ten children. He ws a properous farmer. During the Gold Rush to Pikes Peak he furnished five wagons with five spans of horses or mules to race to the top. He almost went broke of that venture.
Delacy---Sawyer was born?She married Amos Sawyer on ? and they moved to Staunton, Ill. where they raised a large family. She was the mother of his ten children and died in childbirth with the tenth sometime in 1856.
Children of Amos Sawyer and Delacy family
1.Sarah Jane Sawyer born Nov. 28, 1866 in Staunton, Ill. Married John Perry Sawyer Oc. 1, 1863 and had 10 children. She died June 17, 1898. Buried in Moline, Kansas.
Dear Scott,
This letter does repeat itself. This is the original one from Aunt Helen Kennedy; I believe. When there are parentheis with comments, those are mine!!
I am always glad to give away my knowledge of the family as I hear it or read it!!
I hope this is something of what you were wanting.
Love Aunt Patty
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/research/tucson/img022.jpg b/unseen/research/tucson/img022.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e93d22 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/research/tucson/img022.jpg diff --git a/unseen/research/tucson/img023.jpg b/unseen/research/tucson/img023.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..88993a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/research/tucson/img023.jpg diff --git a/unseen/research/tucson/mcbride_32_ford_bb.jpg b/unseen/research/tucson/mcbride_32_ford_bb.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a48cc5 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/research/tucson/mcbride_32_ford_bb.jpg diff --git a/unseen/research/tucson/tucson cuts.txt b/unseen/research/tucson/tucson cuts.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9ce48ed --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/research/tucson/tucson cuts.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +Janine moved through the crowded living room with a naively aloof glide, an innocently off-putting quality that Sil had seen in other brides-to-be on the night before their wedding. It was, he reasoned, a quality born out of the improbable superimposition of the very public upon the very private. As if a herd of unicorns has just desended upon your village and everyone must pretend that a herd of unicorns descending on your village is somehow extremely extrodinary, but expected nonetheless. Sil was unsure what to do with a heard of unicorns and so he retreated outside past the smiling relatives on the patio to the back wall of the yard where he was afforded a distance from what he considered a collective insanity.
From this vantage point he could snoop about the formica structures of the nuptials' personal life without having to actually participate. The smooth, ill-chosen color schemes that make up the palor of our daily life, that slick looking ship, whale-sitting, something else lurking below, or at least Sil liked to think there was something below, that it was not afterall real marble, but only a veneer. It is, however, possible that we are in a nautical tale after all, and that the whales have been hunted down, disgorged of oil and discarded in a heap of newspaper graveyards that we drive by thinking privately, good god, did you see that? Though this seemed unlikely to Sil, standing, as he was, in the middle of a vast desert. And so he smoked drolly and watched. Trying hard to not look aloof, though realizing that everyone thought he was being aloof.
If fact he was not being aloof. He was simply without a protective formica coating which led him to kind of shyness that came off as aloof and made him even more nervous than he already was. In situations like this smoking was kind of defense or perhaps warning since he was only one who thought he might not look nervous. Janine had already told him 'try and relax, you're making me feel calm,' which of course just made him more self conscious.
Janine seemed to flit between conversations somehow managing to not ever really have one. Sil admired her from a distance and continued to lean against the rough cement wall, glancing around occasionally to watch the sun sink down behind the Catalina Mountains. Distant clouds were beginning to turn a pinkish cast. He was unable to flit. He had never flitted in his entire life. Flitting seemed to him something only tiny grayish birds were capable of, darting between branches that wouldn't have supported the weight of Sil's clumsy hands. And yet, every time he turned away from the mountains, Janine was flitting.
He huffed the last few drags of nicoteen and resolving to, if not flit, at least mingle with his relations, he propelled himself off the cement wall and was headed toward the sliding door when dark a hand brushed his shoulder. He turned half expecting some dark skinned unicorn that the Norse myths had failed to account for, but was greeted simply by eyes he did not recognize.
"You don't know how much it means to Janine that you came to the wedding," he said. "And it means alot to me too," he added.
Sil mumbled something about it being no problem and slowly settled into the realization that this was the boyfriend he had never paid attention to. The boyfriend had darkish skin and seemed indistinct to Sil, He was quite confident that we would not recognize the face when it stepped to the alter tomorrow. He did have a distant recollection of story Janine told slowly and with a lot of emphasis on a parking garage, though he couldn't say for sure if this were that boyfried or another. Nor for that matter could he say for sure that the story involved a boyfriend but he was sure about the parking garage.
[more]
There is pause at a liquor store for a couple packs of his own brand of cigarettes and another similar pause at the front desk, exchanges of money, silent elevator and he sets his bag in the corner of the room, turns out the overhead light and flops down on the bed, staring at the ceiling, smoking several cigarettes in succession, watching the smoke explode in beams of moonlight leaking from the edges of the curtain.
The invitation was addressed to Maine and that bothered him more than he wanted to admit. A somple mistake, but a slick looking ship, whale-sitting, something ominous lurking beneath it. It made Sil feel old and tired. He stood and went the the window pulling back the curtain the reveal the dialated nightscape below. He stared out the window wanting another cigarette. He wanted to keep smoking cigarettes until the whole city was one great smoke filled room and he was younger and everyone knew he didn't live in Maine. To smoke until the city became a blurred and spark-shooting array of stoplights, flickering neon signs, sodium streetlamps, fake adobe strip malls and black empty expances of desert devoid of people. An enormous empty smoke filled room with no one in it, and he could look back at it as the door slowly closed leaving him outside in an even bigger room with a domed sky that stretched from zero to horizon, nothing above but stars, Betelgeuse and reddish Rigel, but mainly Betelgeuse, burning dead center and nowhere near Maine.
Clint was munching fries and talking about "Miracle Mile" or some such nonsense. Conner wasn't paying much attention, he wasn't interested in a mile long miracle, in fact he was pretty sure the miracle mile wasn't a miracle and probably wasn't a mile either. Dr. Roberts had already described it as the only paved road to speak of, which hardly seemed a miracle if you happen to have grown up in California.
And so Conner continued to run his fingers over the strange bump in the formica counter. He was thinking about bird calls. Canyon Wrens to be exact. There had to be some method of using the parabolic mic without picking up too much of the echo as they had been this morning. Conner was pretty sure that what they lacked was some sort of dampening device, but his electronics experience was limited to ham radios and tube circuits, niether of which was any help with these new solid state electronics.
"I say we stay here at Bob's all day," Clint remarked, "too damn hot out there."
His words irritated Conner and suddenly he was pretty sure anything would be better than sitting in this booth for another second.
"You can stay," he said sliding out of the booth, "I think I'll walk back to the motel and see if I can work out something to cut the echo in the recordings"
They both shrugged, but said nothing and so Conner ducked out of Bob's Big Boy into the shimmering summer heat. Less than a block later he was regretting his decision. The soles of his shoes were noticably softer and could well have melted on the sidewalk if he stood still for too long. Back at the motel he went inside and flopped on the bed for minute, but inside there was just the heat, not chance of a breeze so he dragged a chair outside and sat on the shaded porch squinting at the moutains.
"Whatcha doin'?"
A girl of ten or so stepped around the corner and into the shadow.
"nothing"
"Wanna come in the store and buy me some candy?"
Conner studied her for a moment and, unable the think of a response he simply stood and followed her through the cactus garden toward the store.
"He gonna buy me candy Jenny"
"Pacey, for the love of god, speak in proper english"
Jenny sat behind the counter fanning herself with a magazine, her legs propped up on a stool.
"She's really not the moron she pretends to be..."
"Oh. Well I didn't.."
"Yes you did. You're one of those college boys aren't you? Doing research? Staying in rooms 4 and 5?"
"Yes."
"Well see you think Pacey is some hick kid, right?"
She dropped her legs to the floor and stood up. She was chewing gum between sentences. She slouched forward leaning on the counter.
"You college boys are always coming round here thinking you're so damn smart and little Pacey there suckers every one of you into buying her candy. She got your friend this morning, the real skinny one..."
"Clint"
"I guess so. Anyway, if ya'll had any sense at all you'd smack her upside the head, but no, you buy her candy. Why is that exactly?"
In order to lay Formica you need a reasonably smooth surface, too much chipping of the base material and--alchemist's horror--there is no adherence, or, alternately, the base can be filled in with some sort of patching material. But the best Formica is laid atop the most level of surfaces. Then comes the glue. Pasty, thick and sometimes non-toxic. Sometimes not. It depends on how well you want the veneer to stick.
Conner's finger was drawn back to the bubble on the counter. Was it a bump under the surface, or a bit of glue that didn't quite spread out right? "
********
"Perhaps tomorrow you or Mr. Munson can point us in the direction of the V.A. hospital?"
"Oh yeah it's easy, just make a left up their on Oracle and follow it..."
"We'll be back by tomorrow I'm sure."
"Oh, well, if you're not, I live at the Vida Court, so you could always knock on my door."
The woman seemed not to have heard him and continued in a determined manner, still making half circles in the gravel with her left foot.
"We will be settling here for some time Ambrose. I believe we will need to sell this truck and probably look into some sort of more permanent lodging..."
"Oh well, you're welcome to stay at the Vida Court long as you need ma'am. My folks are the owners so I can make sure they give you an efficiency, and you can buy food at the store and there's firewood in the lot out back of my bungalow..."
"That's very kind of you Ambrose, my entire family thanks you."
Ambrose glanced up and the truck and noticed that all three girls were smiling at him and two new boys heads had appeared near the end of the truck bed, who were also smiling at him though in a less friendly manner.
"We need some petrol and a place to stay."
"Okay. Well I'll fill it up for you. You can stay down to street at the Vida Court. I'm sure there's some rooms."
"Are you Munson?"
"No ma'am, I'm Ambrose. I just work here. Mr. Munson went down to the V.A. hospital to have his head examined."
"Oh my..."
"Oh, no, not like that. I mean he was working on Chrysler this morning and the muffler fell off and knocked him out cold. Well, he heads down to the V.A hospital about any time he can, some nurse there..."
"I see."
"Perhaps tomorrow you or Mr. Munson can point us in the direction of the V.A. hospital?"
"Oh yeah it's easy, just make a left up their on Oracle and follow it..."
"We'll be back by tomorrow I'm sure."
"Oh, well, if you're not, I live at the Vida Court, so you could always knock on my door."
The woman seemed not to have heard him and continued in a determined manner, still making half circles in the gravel with her left foot.
"We will be settling here for some time Ambrose. I believe we will need to sell this truck and probably look into some sort of more permanent lodging..."
"Oh well, you're welcome to stay at the Vida Court long as you need ma'am. My folks are the owners so I can make sure they give you an efficiency, and you can buy food at the store and there's firewood in the lot out back of my bungalow..."
"That's very kind of you Ambrose, my entire family thanks you."
Ambrose glanced up and the truck and noticed that all three girls were smiling at him and two new boys heads had appeared near the end of the truck bed, who were also smiling at him though in a less friendly manner.
Before they left the river and walked home he would point out stars he had memorized from the chart the Munson had pinned on the wall of the garage. Exotic names wormed into her head, Betelgeuse, Orion, Regal. Later they would blend with names like Panama, Manila, Kyoto, Tokyo. Words that rose from letters seemed to float and always she would see his eyes floating like the novel Jack told her about. She tried to picture him when John Wayne would storm the beach, but it never worked and newsreels always talked of bravery and pride and Emma saw the words floating loneliness, longing, sorrow, homesick and did not bother to be brave weeping on her bed as the baby slept without having seen her father. She leaned into the crib and listened to the babys heartbeat like the hummingbird wings she saw when he blinked.
But maybe the mountains weren't really keeping watch. Maybe they were laughing green and crumbling, discarding their unneeded water into the desert river along with boulders and trees and other baggage they could get along with out. Just dumping it down here like so much sewage. My thoughts always end this way she realized, always with death and debris. But then so does life doesnt it. She turned that over a while waiting to see if the notion would become enjoyable or scare her so profoundly she ran away and disappeared into the desert forever. But it did neither. It merely repeated over and over with the same numb indifference each time.
********
The long metal tunnel out of the plane is lined with hollow florescent lights and reverberates with the muffled echo of shuffling feet headed up the incline in front of them. Airplanes are improbable. And yet it is ending again in cheap metal and sheet rock. An ordinary ending to every improbability better suited than a continuation of improbabilities and not unlike the stale florescent absence of similarly textured hospital walls. The shuffling feet moving out of rooms like last quiet sighs of breath. She drags her hand absently across the textured wall to the memory of woven grass wallpaper on the living room walls of the house she grew up in.
Memory is unlikely. Unlikely enough to have become necessary, to have become a marker on the passage of time, which is equally unlikely and necessary--the passage of time marked by memories of the spaces we once inhabited--improbable at best. The ramp distends and delivers Claire, Daniel and their fellow passengers into the stale air of the Tucson International Airport. They continued through the gate area and onto a people mover. The florescent lights give way to a velveteen darkness lit only with soft orange glow of backlit posters of distant nebula and globular clusters. Advertisements for a new exhibit at the observatory. Claire glides, head tipped back, staring up at the arched glass ceilings and faint glimpse of stars above. Memory is less a recalling of events than a reconstruction. A strung together recollection of events colored by later recounting, collectively created, framed and repeated until solidified. Always with the implication that they might well have come from nowhere else. There is a roaring sound and blinking lights through the window to her left. She feels evacuated and desperate for nicotine.
Around her men and women pass, most walking the hallway, but some closer, passing Claire along the motorized rubber floor, bags thrown over their shoulders, several soldiers headed for Davis Montham, a businessman with black leather shoulder bag more expensive than his suit, a woman near Claires age balancing too many bags and two children. Claire watches as she removes the child from her arms, setting him to floor and putting his hand in his sister's hands. She straightens and heaves a large quilted bag back over her shoulder and grabs the young girl's free hand and sets off again, boy in tow. This is less disentanglement than a knotting into, a return to, a memory of some kind. Everything I learn is really a process of remembering. Daniel takes her hand in his and watches the woman with the children slide back down the hall. He looks down at her and smiles in a way that makes Claire uncomfortable, as when she would eat to much candy on Halloween. They pass out of the glass-domed walkway and back into florescent light, baggage claim, sliding doors and finally the cool sodium glow of the desert.
Daniel walks down to the Avis counter leaving Claire to seek out a hurried cigarette before he returns. She settles for an Old Gold from a surly construction worker laboring under the terminus of a great, arched steel girder, which Claire is pretty sure holds up the domed skylight tunnel she has recently admired. The worker is just crushing out his cigarette when Claire asks for one. She thanks the worker profusely and turns slowly, trying to look absent minded, not wanting to be rude, but not wanting a conversation.
Claire starts to walk in the direction of the Avis bus stop but turns back to watch the construction worker sand, or rather grind, something near the bottom of a steel girder. Sparks fly off at odd intervals and look a bit like luminous shards of glass from a collapsing ceiling. The sparks have an undetectable pattern, a randomness that is notthey arc off and fade to nothing mimicking the smoke from the glowing tip of her cigarette. She drops the last half-inch to the ground and leaves it burning.
Later in the hotel room after Daniel has fallen asleep Claire sits up in bed and turns on the light. She draws her knees up under her chin and stares out the window. She wants another cigarette, but has promised him she would stop. It isnt good for you Claire. Lots of things arent, but I enjoy them. Youre killing yourself and worse youre paying to do it. So are you, just not with cigarettes. Even later after their argument had escalated, crested and settled down in a trough of kisses and sleepy mews she could feel the topic sitting on her like a ship, but a slick looking ship, whale-sitting, something ominous lurking beneath it. It made Claire feel old and tired. And so she continued to stare out the window wanting another cigarette. She wanted to keep smoking cigarettes until the whole city was one great smoke filled room and she was younger and felt confident in her ability to live full if not long. To smoke until the city became a blurred and spark-shooting array of stoplights, flickering neon signs, sodium streetlamps, fake adobe strip malls and black empty expanses of desert devoid of people. An enormous empty smoke filled room with no one in it, and she could look back at it as the door slowly closed leaving her outside in an even bigger room with a domed sky that stretched from zero to horizon, nothing above but stars, Orions belt and raised arm burning dead center and nowhere near Tucson.
Even up on the mountain it was hot. At least its not as stifling as New Geneai he reasoned. Whenever the dish rotated the glare was unbelievable. They said if you looked right at it it would burn the color out of your eyes like what happened to Jack with the arc welding. He was unsettling to look at even now. Though the doctors said it could get better.
Ambrose still thought hugging the road would have been the smarter move. He tried to tell the engineers but they dismissed him because he was just an installer. They seemed to think a college education made you smarter. It irritated Ambrose, but he said nothing. He was thankful for the work. Emma had just gotten home with the baby when Bell called and offered the job. The baby would need diapers and Janine was starting school next year, he reminded himself that he should be thankful, but whit the heat it was hard to be thankful for more than a simple breeze.
By the time he made the drive back from the observatory it was well past dark. He generally ate his supper at the table with Emma and went straight to bed. The crew truck would be honking outside at 6 AM.
Emma sat alone on the porch late into the night smoking the cigarettes she had given up for the babys sake. She missed the blankets. The smell of the river full of debris and swollen with desert placenta. They had talked. They had talked all night and then he would walk six miles home to get up and go to work a few hours later. They met every night after Father ran off and there was no one to holler and slap when she disappeared at night. Jack had tried of course, but he didnt have the heart. He wanted to run off to the river too, but didnt have anyone to run with. Nor could he run.
But Ambrose had been different after he got back from the war. Not that he had seen action or was shell-shocked. He never talked about it. Emma wished he would. She could feel the barrier of the war rise up between them. Something had sent him to the other bank of the river. He claimed he hadnt seen much action and she believed him, but he would say no more. She would rather have heard intimate details of the men he had killed than hear nothing at all. She did not think she would think less of him. He hadnt started the war. He was just a man sent to kill. Or rather to save since he had been a medic. Whatever the case she merely longed to feel that closeness again. To stare in his eyes and play at Eskimo kisses or Butterfly kisses or just watch the lightening bugs floating in the Mesquite trees.
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/research/tucson/tucson-edit.txt b/unseen/research/tucson/tucson-edit.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c96ea7 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/research/tucson/tucson-edit.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +"Gamma says the sand massages your gums and makes them soft and then your teeth fall out and you chew them up in dreams when you're anxious like you are Claire."
Claire ignored her nephew and continued to stare down at the green lacy finger snaking through the featureless pink desert. No not featuresless Claire decided, just subtle or perhaps not even subtle--indifferent, indifferent to the churning brown water of the Rialto fiver slithering through it. Why should it pay any attention? Sure the river was starting to flood, three days rain feeding it, but ten yards on either side and it was sand again. Featureless pink sand with thorny plants. The sand didn't care for the water, didn't hold onto it, didn't even try, just let the water flow right on over it, puddle and collect, run off and feed into the river.
And it did it so fast it routinely killed people who weren't paying attention. Walls of water rushing through, rejected by the desert and sent off to kill and maim on its way to the ocean.
Of course there were the mountains ringing the desert, keeping watch over it, making sure it behaved in some general way. Claire studied the Rincon range and tried to ignore her missing toothed nephew and his constant you look nervous and your look worried and you look miserable, why are you so sad Claire conversation.
But maybe the mountains weren't really keeping watch. Maybe they were laughing green and crumbling, discarding their unneeded water into the desert river along with boulders and tree and other baggage they could get along with out. Just dumping it down here like so much sewage.
In three days I will be married. She kept repeating it in her head to see if perhaps it would sink in and become enjoyable or scare her so profoundly she ran away and disappeared into the desert forever. But it did neither. She just thought it over and over with the same numb indifference each time.
***
The long metal tunnel out of the plane is lined with hollow florescent lights and reverberates with the muffled echo of shuffling feet headed up the incline in front of him. Airplanes are improbable. And yet it is ending again in cheap metal and sheet rock. An ordinary ending to every improbability, better suited than a continuation of improbabilities and not unlike the stale florescent absence of similarly textured hospital walls. The shuffling feet moving out of rooms like quiet last sighs of breath. He drags his hand absently across the textured wall to the memory of woven grass wallpaper on the living room walls of the house he grew up in.
Memory is unlikely. Unlikely enough to have become necessary, to have become a marker on the passage of time, which is equally unlikely and necessary--the passage of time marked by memories of the spaces we once inhabited--improbable at best. The ramp distends and delivers Sil and his fellow passengers into the stale air of the Tucson International Airport. He continues through the gate area and onto a people mover. The florescent lights give way to a velveteen darkness lit only with soft orange glow of backlit posters of distant nebula and globular clusters. Sil glides, head tipped back, staring up at the arched glass ceilings and faint glimpse of stars above. Memory is less a recalling of events than a reconstruction. A strung together recollection of events colored by later recounting, collectively created, framed and repeated until solidified. Always with the implication that they might well have come from nowhere else. There is a roaring sound and blinking lights through the window to his left. He feels evacuated and without anything to smoke.
Around him men and women pass, most walking the hallway, but some closer, passing him along the motorized rubber floor, bags thrown over their shoulders, several soldiers headed for Davis Montham, a businessman with black leather shoulder bag more expensive than his suit, a woman near his age balancing too many bags and two children. Sil watches as she removes the child from her arms, setting him to floor and putting his hand in his sister's hands. She straightens and heaves a large quilted bag back over her shoulder and grabs the young girl's free hand and sets off again, boy in tow. This is less a disentanglement than a knotting into, a return to, a memory of some kind. They pass out of the glass domed walkway and back into florescent light, baggage claim, sliding doors and finally the warm sodium glow of the desert.
Sil settles for an Old Gold from a surly construction worker laboring under the terminus of a great, arched steel girder, which Sil is pretty sure holds up the domed skylight tunnel he has recently admired. The worker is just crushing out his cigarette when Sil asks for one. He thanks the worker and turns slowly, trying to look abscent minded, not wanting to be rude, but not wanting a conversation.
The driver greets Sil by name. They must have sent a photo Sil reasons, though he can't really image why. Perhaps the drivers just got tired of having to hold those rediculous signs and require photos these days. Either way the man greets him by name and leads him down a line of fairly identical Towncars and Cadillacs to the one at the front of the line. He forces Sil to finish the cigarette before getting in the car so Sil turns back to watch the construction worker sand, or rather grind, something near the bottom of a steel girder. Sparks fly off at odd intervals and look a bit like luminous shards of glass from a collapsing ceiling. The sparkes have an undetectable pattern, a randomness that is notthey arc off and fade to nothing mimicing the smoke from the glowing tip of his cigarette. He drops the last half inch to the ground and leaves it burning.
There is pause at a liquor store for a couple packs of his own brand of cigarettes and another similar pause at the front desk, exchanges of money, silent elevator and he sets his bag in the corner of the room, turns out the overhead light and flops down on the bed, staring at the ceiling, smoking several cigarettes in succession, watching the smoke explode in beams of moonlight leaking from the edges of the curtain.
The invitation was addressed to Maine and that bothered him more than he wanted to admit. A somple mistake, but a slick looking ship, whale-sitting, something ominous lurking beneath it. It made Sil feel old and tired. He stood and went the the window pulling back the curtain the reveal the dialated nightscape below. He stared out the window wanting another cigarette. He wanted to keep smoking cigarettes until the whole city was one great smoke filled room and he was younger and everyone knew he didn't live in Maine. To smoke until the city became a blurred and spark-shooting array of stoplights, flickering neon signs, sodium streetlamps, fake adobe strip malls and black empty expances of desert devoid of people. An enormous empty smoke filled room with no one in it, and he could look back at it as the door slowly closed leaving him outside in an even bigger room with a domed sky that stretched from zero to horizon, nothing above but stars, Betelgeuse and reddish Rigel, but mainly Betelgeuse, burning dead center and nowhere near Maine.
**
Ambrose had just stepped out into the evening heat when the cloud of dust forced him to close his eyes and entirely miss the bumpy, lurching arrival of the truck. he was still standing in the shadows of the garage wiping his eyes with a greasy rag when he heard the door slam and the inevitable gravel crunch of footsteps coming his way. He was relatively sure it was not Otto and his boys so, squinting against the glare of the setting sun he stepped out of the shadows and was just able to make out a figure limping toward him when a woman's voice startled him.
"Sorry about the dust."
"That's all right ma'am."
"We need some petrol and a place to stay."
"Okay. Well I'll fill it up for you. You can stay down to street at the Vida Court. I'm sure there's some rooms."
"Are you Munson?"
"No ma'am, I'm Ambrose. I just work here. Mr. Munson went down to the V.A. hospital to have his head examined."
"Oh my..."
"Oh, no, not like that. I mean he was working on Chrysler this morning and the muffler fell off and knocked him out cold. Well, he heads down to the V.A hospital about any time he can, some nurse there..."
"I see."
She dragged what Ambrose thought of as a dainty leather boot in a half circle through the gravel. Suddenly Ambrose felt stupid for having said as much as he did. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the light he could see that she was not the sort of woman who wanted the hear about lonely mechanics and nurses. Three girls still sitting atop a pile of trundles and suitcases in the back of the truck were squirming in a fit of giggles. Ambrose turned his head away from them and busied himself with pumping gas, which regrettabley took little concentration. A strange loping sound caused him to turn away from the truck and it's blush endusing passengers and look out toward the street where a man slightly older than himself was limping across the gravel driveway. He had a curious way of walking, one side of him appeared to be badly crippled, from polio, Ambrose guessed, but the other side of him looked like it could pull down a charging steer with it's one good arm. Consequently he sort of loped to his left, dragging his right behind him.
Ambrose turned back around and found the woman studying him.
"That's my son Jim."
"Oh."
"The polio gave him that way of walking..."
"I figured." Ambrose mumbled, unsure what to say.
"The doctors told me he would never walk again and that it was best to keep him in a dark corner of the house and try to forget about him. Well, they didn't say that exactly, but that was what they meant. As you can see. He had other ideas."
"Yes, ma'am. Never liked doctors."
"Well, they also told me to come to Arizona on account of my husband. They said that the clean air would be good for his tuberculous."
She gestured to the back of the truck and Ambrose stood on his tiptoes and looked over the slated wormwood sides to noticed that the bed of the truck was outfitted with a crumpled mattress upon which a very much dead looking man was reclined. For a moment Ambrose thought he might indeed have perished on the journey, but then the eyes opened and revealed a glassy pained look that was quickly swallowed in a cacophony of hacking desolate sounds. The three girls had ceased their laughter and were staring liquid eyed in Ambrose's direction. All three seemed relatively unconcerned with the fit of coughing emitting from the reclining man.
"Perhaps tomorrow you or Mr. Munson can point us in the direction of the V.A. hospital?"
"Oh yeah it's easy, just make a left up their on Oracle and follow it..."
"We'll be back by tomorrow I'm sure."
"Oh, well, if you're not, I live at the Vida Court, so you could alway knock on my door."
The woman seemed not to have heard him and continued in a determined manner, still making half circles in the gravel with her left foot.
"We will be settling here for some time Ambrose. I believe we will need to sell this truck and probably look into some sort of more permanent lodging..."
"Oh well, you're welcome to stay at the Vida Court long as you need ma'am. My folks are the owners so I can make sure they give you an efficiency, and you can buy food at the store and there's firewood in the lot out back of my bungalow..."
"That's very kind of you Ambrose, my entire family thanks you."
Ambrose glanced up and the truck and noticed that all three girls were smiling at him and two new boys heads had appeared near the end of the truckbed, who were also smiling at him though in a less friendly manner.
She paid him in coins and the crippled man climbed back in the passengers side of the truck. The engine coughed back to life after a few sputters that Ambrose attributed to a grungy distributer cap. After a smile and wave from the woman the truck lurched out onto Prince road and Ambrose watched them for while, long enough to see brake lights in front of Vida court. He turned around and walked back into the garage and grabbed his cigarettes. He pulled down the garage doors, yanked the chain that turned on and off the lighted sign that Mr. Munson was so proud off, visible from the highway he said, though Ambrose lacked car so he couldn't say for sure. He made his usual tour of building turning off lights and locking doors. He flipped the open sign over and stepped outside locking the front door behind him. Satisified, Ambrose fished out a cigarette and lit it, pausing for a moment, watching the thunderheads over the Catalina Mountains begin evening's journey toward crimson. After a moment he shoved his hands in his pockets and began walking down the street toward the Vida Court.
**
The Rialto river was indeed rising. Claire reached behind her and unself-consciously pulled the back of her shirt down even with the hem of her pants so that the scar didn't show. but she didn't do it to hide the scar she did it because she had always done it because there had nearly always been the scar and the memory of needles and the clear antiseptic smell of epinephrine the weezing drowning pull at the bottom of her lungs the suffocating crush. This is what they mean--jitters--rocks and branches and trees pouring down out the high desert plains to the east where the rain started and tumbling cross the whole of the valley to pass here in front of this house where I am standing.
Claire turned around and looked back at the house with its choclate slated patio and warm yellow glowing widnows stuffed with familiar faces and she wanted to vomit.
Jittery what? and then the desert going and going.
**
Emma had developed a peculiar fascination with chewing sand. It came to her mouth as a dry film licked off her lips with absent-minded desperateness. At first she had constantly pressed her lips up to gap between the boards and, gently as possible, spit it out. But then one spit whipped in the wind of a passing Chevy had flown back and hit Jack in the eye. After enduring Jack's response she explored other options and had happened on the fact that you can chew sand. You can not, however, gargle sand as Maggie suggested.
So from western Oklahoma onward she had been chewing sand and now, disembarked from the truck bed she violently spat it on a cactus and resolved to never do it again. Though licking her lips inside the motel room still drew into her mouth the seemingly everpresent dusty film.
Perhaps the whole west is just one thin dusty film. Certainly the hotel room was saturated by a fine grit that crept through the screens all day every time it could find and gust of wind to hitch a ride on.
Jack had gone around the building and Emma could here him taking to the mechanic about the weather. What this place needs Emma thought is good long afternoon shower to put the damn dust back in it's place. To put it down.
There was nowhere it sit inside. The boys had laid Father out on the bed and Mama was giving him a glass of water and some saltines. They were talking in low voices that Emma coould not make out. She went outside to help with the luggage and have a look around.
The Vida Court efficancy was, well Emma reasoned, it was better than sitting atop trundles in the back of the flatbed wedge between sweaty siblings and mucus and blood spewing father. And that was a about all that could be said of it. It was not, for instance, a ten room farm house with three floors and a tornado cellar. Nor was it surrounded by endless acres of imported genuine Kentucky bluegrass with a semicircle of drooping cottonwood trees growing around the pond. There was no pond. There was no second story. There was a bathtub though, and after waiting for both Maggie and Betty to finish, she was allowed the privacy of the bathroom for twenty minutes.
It was only after she removed her stockings that she realized how thoroughly the sand had saturated her. Or perhaps she thought briefly, perhaps my thighs have tanned through these skirts, but no it was the dusty film of Oklahoma and New Mexico that had flown up under her skirt and surrendered now to the refreshing cold of the bath water.
**
In order to lay formica you need a reasonably smooth surface, too much chipping of the base material and--alchemist's horror--there is no adherance, or, alternately, the base can be filled in with some sort of patching material. But the best formica is laid atop the levelest of surfaces. Then comes the glue. Pasty, thick and sometimes non-toxic. Sometimes not. It depends on how well you want the veneer to stick.
Conner's finger was drawn back to the bubble on the counter. Was it a bump under the surface, or a bit of glue that didn't quite spread out right? Clint was munching fries and talking about "Miracle Mile" or some such nonsense. Conner wasn't paying much attention, he wasn't interested in a mile long miracle, in fact he was pretty sure the miracle mile wasn't a miracle and probably wasn't a mile either. Dr. Roberts had already described it as the only paved road to speak of, which hardly seemed a miracle if you happen to have grown up in Whittier California.
And so Conner continued to run his fingers over the strange bump in the formica counter. He was thinking about bird calls. Canyon Wrens to be exact. There had to be some method of using the parabolic mic without picking up too much of the echo as they had been this morning. Conner was pretty sure that what they lacked was some sort of dampening device, but his electronics experience was limited to ham radios and tube circuits, niether of which was any help with these new solid state electronics.
"I say we stay here at Bob's all day," Clint remarked, "too damn hot out there."
His words irritated Conner and suddenly he was pretty sure anything would be better than sitting in this booth for another second.
"You can stay," he said sliding out of the booth, "I think I'll walk back to the motel and see if I can work out something to cut the echo in the recordings"
They both shrugged, but said nothing and so Conner ducked out of Bob's Big Boy into the shimmering summer heat. Less than a block later he was regretting his decision. The soles of his shoes were noticably softer and could well have melted on the sidewalk if he stood still for too long. Back at the motel he went inside and flopped on the bed for minute, but inside there was just the heat, not chance of a breeze so he dragged a chair outside and sat on the shaded porch squinting at the moutains.
"Whatcha doin'?"
A girl of ten or so stepped around the corner and into the shadow.
"nothing"
"Wanna come in the store and buy me some candy?"
Conner studied her for a moment and, unable the think of a response he simply stood and followed her through the cactus garden toward the store.
"He gonna buy me candy Jenny"
"Pacey, for the love of god, speak in proper english"
Jenny sat behind the counter fanning herself with a magazine, her legs propped up on a stool.
"She's really not the moron she pretends to be..."
"Oh. Well I didn't.."
"Yes you did. You're one of those college boys aren't you? Doing research? Staying in rooms 4 and 5?"
"Yes."
"Well see you think Pacey is some hick kid, right?"
She dropped her legs to the floor and stood up. She was chewing gum between sentences. She slouched forward leaning on the counter.
"You college boys are always coming round here thinking you're so damn smart and little Pacey there suckers every one of you into buying her candy. She got your friend this morning, the real skinny one..."
"Clint"
"I guess so. Anyway, if ya'll had any sense at all you'd smack her upside the head, but no, you buy her candy. Why is that exactly?"
""
[more]
**
**
He obviously couldn't see her, at least she was pretty sure he couldn't see her. She couldn't see him very clearly either, the light was fading but there was still a dark frame in a chair on the porch. She was standing in the bathtub dripping water and watching the shadow for signs of movement.
Jack pounded on the door again. "Come on Emma, I want to clean up too..."
She ignored him and continued watching the mechanic. She was hoping he would get off the porch and chop wood or do something, but there probably wasn't much call for wood this time of year. He just sat there, tipping his chair back and forth sucking on a beer that had already gone warm.
She put on a clean dress and evacuated the bungalow as fast as she could without raising undue suspicions. The sun was already gone, but the air still had traces of the heat. She walked around the cacti and was tempted to touch the thorns of a small squat variety. She reached out her hand and ran it from the center out and down the edge, careful to keep her hand moving with the hooked direction of the needle.
"So ya'll sold your farm, bought the truck and hauled your dad out here for some fresh air huh?"
The voice startled her enough that she almost leaned on the cactus for support, but at the last second realized the stupidity of doing so, like chewing sand.
"Sorry?"
"You sold the farm, bought the truck and here you are, tb and all."
"Something like that."
"We get quite a few passing through these days..."
"Oh we're staying I believe."
"I'm Ambrose"
He extended his hand and she stepped out of the cacti and took it in her own.
"Emma."
"Nice to meet you Emma."
***
***
Janine moved through the crowded living room with a naively aloof glide, an innocently off-putting quality that Sil had seen in other brides-to-be on the night before their wedding. It was, he reasoned, a quality born out of the improbable superimposition of the very public upon the very private. As if a herd of unicorns has just desended upon your village and everyone must pretend that a herd of unicorns descending on your village is somehow extremely extrodinary, but expected nonetheless. Sil was unsure what to do with a heard of unicorns and so he retreated outside past the smiling relatives on the patio to the back wall of the yard where he was afforded a distance from what he considered a collective insanity.
From this vantage point he could snoop about the formica structures of the nuptials' personal life without having to actually participate. The smooth, ill-chosen color schemes that make up the palor of our daily life, that slick looking ship, whale-sitting, something else lurking below, or at least Sil liked to think there was something below, that it was not afterall real marble, but only a veneer. It is, however, possible that we are in a nautical tale after all, and that the whales have been hunted down, disgorged of oil and discarded in a heap of newspaper graveyards that we drive by thinking privately, good god, did you see that? Though this seemed unlikely to Sil, standing, as he was, in the middle of a vast desert. And so he smoked drolly and watched. Trying hard to not look aloof, though realizing that everyone thought he was being aloof.
If fact he was not being aloof. He was simply without a protective formica coating which led him to kind of shyness that came off as aloof and made him even more nervous than he already was. In situations like this smoking was kind of defense or perhaps warning since he was only one who thought he might not look nervous. Janine had already told him 'try and relax, you're making me feel calm,' which of course just made him more self conscious.
Janine seemed to flit between conversations somehow managing to not ever really have one. Sil admired her from a distance and continued to lean against the rough cement wall, glancing around occasionally to watch the sun sink down behind the Catalina Mountains. Distant clouds were beginning to turn a pinkish cast. He was unable to flit. He had never flitted in his entire life. Flitting seemed to him something only tiny grayish birds were capable of, darting between branches that wouldn't have supported the weight of Sil's clumsy hands. And yet, every time he turned away from the mountains, Janine was flitting.
He huffed the last few drags of nicoteen and resolving to, if not flit, at least mingle with his relations, he propelled himself off the cement wall and was headed toward the sliding door when dark a hand brushed his shoulder. He turned half expecting some dark skinned unicorn that the Norse myths had failed to account for, but was greeted simply by eyes he did not recognize.
"You don't know how much it means to Janine that you came to the wedding," he said. "And it means alot to me too," he added.
Sil mumbled something about it being no problem and slowly settled into the realization that this was the boyfriend he had never paid attention to. The boyfriend had darkish skin and seemed indistinct to Sil, He was quite confident that we would not recognize the face when it stepped to the alter tomorrow. He did have a distant recollection of story Janine told slowly and with a lot of emphasis on a parking garage, though he couldn't say for sure if this were that boyfried or another. Nor for that matter could he say for sure that the story involved a boyfriend but he was sure about the parking garage.
[more] diff --git a/unseen/research/tucson/tucson.txt b/unseen/research/tucson/tucson.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e3b7e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/research/tucson/tucson.txt @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +"Gamma says the sand massages your gums and makes them soft and then your teeth fall out and you chew them up in dreams when you're anxious like you are Claire."
Claire ignored her nephew and continued to stare down at the green lacy finger snaking through the featureless pink desert. No not featuresless Claire decided, just subtle or perhaps not even subtle--indifferent, indifferent to the churning brown water of the Rialto fiver slithering through it. Why should it pay any attention? Sure the river was starting to flood, three days rain feeding it, but ten yards on either side and it was sand again. Featureless pink sand with thorny plants. The sand didn't care for the water, didn't hold onto it, didn't even try, just let the water flow right on over it, puddle and collect, run off and feed into the river.
And it did it so fast it routinely killed people who weren't paying attention. Walls of water rushing through, rejected by the desert and sent off to kill and maim on its way to the ocean.
Of course there were the mountains ringing the desert, keeping watch over it, making sure it behaved in some general way. Claire studied the Rincon range and tried to ignore her missing toothed nephew and his constant you look nervous and your look worried and you look miserable, why are you so sad Claire conversation.
But maybe the mountains weren't really keeping watch. Maybe they were laughing green and crumbling, discarding their unneeded water into the desert river along with boulders and tree and other baggage they could get along with out. Just dumping it down here like so much sewage.
In three days I will be married. She kept repeating it in her head to see if perhaps it would sink in and become enjoyable or scare her so profoundly she ran away and disappeared into the desert forever. But it did neither. She just thought it over and over with the same numb indifference each time.
***
The long metal tunnel out of the plane is lined with hollow florescent lights and reverberates with the muffled echo of shuffling feet headed up the incline in front of him. Airplanes are improbable. And yet it is ending again in cheap metal and sheet rock. An ordinary ending to every improbability, better suited than a continuation of improbabilities and not unlike the stale florescent absence of similarly textured hospital walls. The shuffling feet moving out of rooms like quiet last sighs of breath. He drags his hand absently across the textured wall to the memory of woven grass wallpaper on the living room walls of the house he grew up in.
Memory is unlikely. Unlikely enough to have become necessary, to have become a marker on the passage of time, which is equally unlikely and necessary--the passage of time marked by memories of the spaces we once inhabited--improbable at best. The ramp distends and delivers Sil and his fellow passengers into the stale air of the Tucson International Airport. He continues through the gate area and onto a people mover. The florescent lights give way to a velveteen darkness lit only with soft orange glow of backlit posters of distant nebula and globular clusters. Sil glides, head tipped back, staring up at the arched glass ceilings and faint glimpse of stars above. Memory is less a recalling of events than a reconstruction. A strung together recollection of events colored by later recounting, collectively created, framed and repeated until solidified. Always with the implication that they might well have come from nowhere else. There is a roaring sound and blinking lights through the window to his left. He feels evacuated and without anything to smoke.
Around him men and women pass, most walking the hallway, but some closer, passing him along the motorized rubber floor, bags thrown over their shoulders, several soldiers headed for Davis Montham, a businessman with black leather shoulder bag more expensive than his suit, a woman near his age balancing too many bags and two children. Sil watches as she removes the child from her arms, setting him to floor and putting his hand in his sister's hands. She straightens and heaves a large quilted bag back over her shoulder and grabs the young girl's free hand and sets off again, boy in tow. This is less a disentanglement than a knotting into, a return to, a memory of some kind. They pass out of the glass domed walkway and back into florescent light, baggage claim, sliding doors and finally the warm sodium glow of the desert.
Sil settles for an Old Gold from a surly construction worker laboring under the terminus of a great, arched steel girder, which Sil is pretty sure holds up the domed skylight tunnel he has recently admired. The worker is just crushing out his cigarette when Sil asks for one. He thanks the worker and turns slowly, trying to look abscent minded, not wanting to be rude, but not wanting a conversation.
The driver greets Sil by name. They must have sent a photo Sil reasons, though he can't really image why. Perhaps the drivers just got tired of having to hold those rediculous signs and require photos these days. Either way the man greets him by name and leads him down a line of fairly identical Towncars and Cadillacs to the one at the front of the line. He forces Sil to finish the cigarette before getting in the car so Sil turns back to watch the construction worker sand, or rather grind, something near the bottom of a steel girder. Sparks fly off at odd intervals and look a bit like luminous shards of glass from a collapsing ceiling. The sparkes have an undetectable pattern, a randomness that is notthey arc off and fade to nothing mimicing the smoke from the glowing tip of his cigarette. He drops the last half inch to the ground and leaves it burning.
There is pause at a liquor store for a couple packs of his own brand of cigarettes and another similar pause at the front desk, exchanges of money, silent elevator and he sets his bag in the corner of the room, turns out the overhead light and flops down on the bed, staring at the ceiling, smoking several cigarettes in succession, watching the smoke explode in beams of moonlight leaking from the edges of the curtain.
The invitation was addressed to Maine and that bothered him more than he wanted to admit. A somple mistake, but a slick looking ship, whale-sitting, something ominous lurking beneath it. It made Sil feel old and tired. He stood and went the the window pulling back the curtain the reveal the dialated nightscape below. He stared out the window wanting another cigarette. He wanted to keep smoking cigarettes until the whole city was one great smoke filled room and he was younger and everyone knew he didn't live in Maine. To smoke until the city became a blurred and spark-shooting array of stoplights, flickering neon signs, sodium streetlamps, fake adobe strip malls and black empty expances of desert devoid of people. An enormous empty smoke filled room with no one in it, and he could look back at it as the door slowly closed leaving him outside in an even bigger room with a domed sky that stretched from zero to horizon, nothing above but stars, Betelgeuse and reddish Rigel, but mainly Betelgeuse, burning dead center and nowhere near Maine.
**
Ambrose had just stepped out into the evening heat when the cloud of dust forced him to close his eyes and entirely miss the bumpy, lurching arrival of the truck. he was still standing in the shadows of the garage wiping his eyes with a greasy rag when he heard the door slam and the inevitable gravel crunch of footsteps coming his way. He was relatively sure it was not Otto and his boys so, squinting against the glare of the setting sun he stepped out of the shadows and was just able to make out a figure limping toward him when a woman's voice startled him.
"Sorry about the dust."
"That's all right ma'am."
"We need some petrol and a place to stay."
"Okay. Well I'll fill it up for you. You can stay down to street at the Vida Court. I'm sure there's some rooms."
"Are you Munson?"
"No ma'am, I'm Ambrose. I just work here. Mr. Munson went down to the V.A. hospital to have his head examined."
"Oh my..."
"Oh, no, not like that. I mean he was working on Chrysler this morning and the muffler fell off and knocked him out cold. Well, he heads down to the V.A hospital about any time he can, some nurse there..."
"I see."
She dragged what Ambrose thought of as a dainty leather boot in a half circle through the gravel. Suddenly Ambrose felt stupid for having said as much as he did. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the light he could see that she was not the sort of woman who wanted the hear about lonely mechanics and nurses. Three girls still sitting atop a pile of trundles and suitcases in the back of the truck were squirming in a fit of giggles. Ambrose turned his head away from them and busied himself with pumping gas, which regrettabley took little concentration. A strange loping sound caused him to turn away from the truck and it's blush endusing passengers and look out toward the street where a man slightly older than himself was limping across the gravel driveway. He had a curious way of walking, one side of him appeared to be badly crippled, from polio, Ambrose guessed, but the other side of him looked like it could pull down a charging steer with it's one good arm. Consequently he sort of loped to his left, dragging his right behind him.
Ambrose turned back around and found the woman studying him.
"That's my son Jim."
"Oh."
"The polio gave him that way of walking..."
"I figured." Ambrose mumbled, unsure what to say.
"The doctors told me he would never walk again and that it was best to keep him in a dark corner of the house and try to forget about him. Well, they didn't say that exactly, but that was what they meant. As you can see. He had other ideas."
"Yes, ma'am. Never liked doctors."
"Well, they also told me to come to Arizona on account of my husband. They said that the clean air would be good for his tuberculous."
She gestured to the back of the truck and Ambrose stood on his tiptoes and looked over the slated wormwood sides to noticed that the bed of the truck was outfitted with a crumpled mattress upon which a very much dead looking man was reclined. For a moment Ambrose thought he might indeed have perished on the journey, but then the eyes opened and revealed a glassy pained look that was quickly swallowed in a cacophony of hacking desolate sounds. The three girls had ceased their laughter and were staring liquid eyed in Ambrose's direction. All three seemed relatively unconcerned with the fit of coughing emitting from the reclining man.
"Perhaps tomorrow you or Mr. Munson can point us in the direction of the V.A. hospital?"
"Oh yeah it's easy, just make a left up their on Oracle and follow it..."
"We'll be back by tomorrow I'm sure."
"Oh, well, if you're not, I live at the Vida Court, so you could alway knock on my door."
The woman seemed not to have heard him and continued in a determined manner, still making half circles in the gravel with her left foot.
"We will be settling here for some time Ambrose. I believe we will need to sell this truck and probably look into some sort of more permanent lodging..."
"Oh well, you're welcome to stay at the Vida Court long as you need ma'am. My folks are the owners so I can make sure they give you an efficiency, and you can buy food at the store and there's firewood in the lot out back of my bungalow..."
"That's very kind of you Ambrose, my entire family thanks you."
Ambrose glanced up and the truck and noticed that all three girls were smiling at him and two new boys heads had appeared near the end of the truckbed, who were also smiling at him though in a less friendly manner.
She paid him in coins and the crippled man climbed back in the passengers side of the truck. The engine coughed back to life after a few sputters that Ambrose attributed to a grungy distributer cap. After a smile and wave from the woman the truck lurched out onto Prince road and Ambrose watched them for while, long enough to see brake lights in front of Vida court. He turned around and walked back into the garage and grabbed his cigarettes. He pulled down the garage doors, yanked the chain that turned on and off the lighted sign that Mr. Munson was so proud off, visible from the highway he said, though Ambrose lacked car so he couldn't say for sure. He made his usual tour of building turning off lights and locking doors. He flipped the open sign over and stepped outside locking the front door behind him. Satisified, Ambrose fished out a cigarette and lit it, pausing for a moment, watching the thunderheads over the Catalina Mountains begin evening's journey toward crimson. After a moment he shoved his hands in his pockets and began walking down the street toward the Vida Court.
**
The Rialto river was indeed rising. Claire reached behind her and unself-consciously pulled the back of her shirt down even with the hem of her pants so that the scar didn't show. but she didn't do it to hide the scar she did it because she had always done it because there had nearly always been the scar and the memory of needles and the clear antiseptic smell of epinephrine the weezing drowning pull at the bottom of her lungs the suffocating crush. This is what they mean--jitters--rocks and branches and trees pouring down out the high desert plains to the east where the rain started and tumbling cross the whole of the valley to pass here in front of this house where I am standing.
Claire turned around and looked back at the house with its choclate slated patio and warm yellow glowing widnows stuffed with familiar faces and she wanted to vomit.
Jittery what? and then the desert going and going.
**
Emma had developed a peculiar fascination with chewing sand. It came to her mouth as a dry film licked off her lips with absent-minded desperateness. At first she had constantly pressed her lips up to gap between the boards and, gently as possible, spit it out. But then one spit whipped in the wind of a passing Chevy had flown back and hit Jack in the eye. After enduring Jack's response she explored other options and had happened on the fact that you can chew sand. You can not, however, gargle sand as Maggie suggested.
So from western Oklahoma onward she had been chewing sand and now, disembarked from the truck bed she violently spat it on a cactus and resolved to never do it again. Though licking her lips inside the motel room still drew into her mouth the seemingly everpresent dusty film.
Perhaps the whole west is just one thin dusty film. Certainly the hotel room was saturated by a fine grit that crept through the screens all day every time it could find and gust of wind to hitch a ride on.
Jack had gone around the building and Emma could here him taking to the mechanic about the weather. What this place needs Emma thought is good long afternoon shower to put the damn dust back in it's place. To put it down.
There was nowhere it sit inside. The boys had laid Father out on the bed and Mama was giving him a glass of water and some saltines. They were talking in low voices that Emma coould not make out. She went outside to help with the luggage and have a look around.
The Vida Court efficancy was, well Emma reasoned, it was better than sitting atop trundles in the back of the flatbed wedge between sweaty siblings and mucus and blood spewing father. And that was a about all that could be said of it. It was not, for instance, a ten room farm house with three floors and a tornado cellar. Nor was it surrounded by endless acres of imported genuine Kentucky bluegrass with a semicircle of drooping cottonwood trees growing around the pond. There was no pond. There was no second story. There was a bathtub though, and after waiting for both Maggie and Betty to finish, she was allowed the privacy of the bathroom for twenty minutes.
It was only after she removed her stockings that she realized how thoroughly the sand had saturated her. Or perhaps she thought briefly, perhaps my thighs have tanned through these skirts, but no it was the dusty film of Oklahoma and New Mexico that had flown up under her skirt and surrendered now to the refreshing cold of the bath water.
**
In order to lay formica you need a reasonably smooth surface, too much chipping of the base material and--alchemist's horror--there is no adherance, or, alternately, the base can be filled in with some sort of patching material. But the best formica is laid atop the levelest of surfaces. Then comes the glue. Pasty, thick and sometimes non-toxic. Sometimes not. It depends on how well you want the veneer to stick.
Conner's finger was drawn back to the bubble on the counter. Was it a bump under the surface, or a bit of glue that didn't quite spread out right? Clint was munching fries and talking about "Miracle Mile" or some such nonsense. Conner wasn't paying much attention, he wasn't interested in a mile long miracle, in fact he was pretty sure the miracle mile wasn't a miracle and probably wasn't a mile either. Dr. Roberts had already described it as the only paved road to speak of, which hardly seemed a miracle if you happen to have grown up in Whittier California.
And so Conner continued to run his fingers over the strange bump in the formica counter. He was thinking about bird calls. Canyon Wrens to be exact. There had to be some method of using the parabolic mic without picking up too much of the echo as they had been this morning. Conner was pretty sure that what they lacked was some sort of dampening device, but his electronics experience was limited to ham radios and tube circuits, niether of which was any help with these new solid state electronics.
"I say we stay here at Bob's all day," Clint remarked, "too damn hot out there."
His words irritated Conner and suddenly he was pretty sure anything would be better than sitting in this booth for another second.
"You can stay," he said sliding out of the booth, "I think I'll walk back to the motel and see if I can work out something to cut the echo in the recordings"
They both shrugged, but said nothing and so Conner ducked out of Bob's Big Boy into the shimmering summer heat. Less than a block later he was regretting his decision. The soles of his shoes were noticably softer and could well have melted on the sidewalk if he stood still for too long. Back at the motel he went inside and flopped on the bed for minute, but inside there was just the heat, not chance of a breeze so he dragged a chair outside and sat on the shaded porch squinting at the moutains.
"Whatcha doin'?"
A girl of ten or so stepped around the corner and into the shadow.
"nothing"
"Wanna come in the store and buy me some candy?"
Conner studied her for a moment and, unable the think of a response he simply stood and followed her through the cactus garden toward the store.
"He gonna buy me candy Jenny"
"Pacey, for the love of god, speak in proper english"
Jenny sat behind the counter fanning herself with a magazine, her legs propped up on a stool.
"She's really not the moron she pretends to be..."
"Oh. Well I didn't.."
"Yes you did. You're one of those college boys aren't you? Doing research? Staying in rooms 4 and 5?"
"Yes."
"Well see you think Pacey is some hick kid, right?"
She dropped her legs to the floor and stood up. She was chewing gum between sentences. She slouched forward leaning on the counter.
"You college boys are always coming round here thinking you're so damn smart and little Pacey there suckers every one of you into buying her candy. She got your friend this morning, the real skinny one..."
"Clint"
"I guess so. Anyway, if ya'll had any sense at all you'd smack her upside the head, but no, you buy her candy. Why is that exactly?"
""
[more]
**
**
He obviously couldn't see her, at least she was pretty sure he couldn't see her. She couldn't see him very clearly either, the light was fading but there was still a dark frame in a chair on the porch. She was standing in the bathtub dripping water and watching the shadow for signs of movement.
Jack pounded on the door again. "Come on Emma, I want to clean up too..."
She ignored him and continued watching the mechanic. She was hoping he would get off the porch and chop wood or do something, but there probably wasn't much call for wood this time of year. He just sat there, tipping his chair back and forth sucking on a beer that had already gone warm.
She put on a clean dress and evacuated the bungalow as fast as she could without raising undue suspicions. The sun was already gone, but the air still had traces of the heat. She walked around the cacti and was tempted to touch the thorns of a small squat variety. She reached out her hand and ran it from the center out and down the edge, careful to keep her hand moving with the hooked direction of the needle.
"So ya'll sold your farm, bought the truck and hauled your dad out here for some fresh air huh?"
The voice startled her enough that she almost leaned on the cactus for support, but at the last second realized the stupidity of doing so, like chewing sand.
"Sorry?"
"You sold the farm, bought the truck and here you are, tb and all."
"Something like that."
"We get quite a few passing through these days..."
"Oh we're staying I believe."
"I'm Ambrose"
He extended his hand and she stepped out of the cacti and took it in her own.
"Emma."
"Nice to meet you Emma."
***
***
Janine moved through the crowded living room with a naively aloof glide, an innocently off-putting quality that Sil had seen in other brides-to-be on the night before their wedding. It was, he reasoned, a quality born out of the improbable superimposition of the very public upon the very private. As if a herd of unicorns has just desended upon your village and everyone must pretend that a herd of unicorns descending on your village is somehow extremely extrodinary, but expected nonetheless. Sil was unsure what to do with a heard of unicorns and so he retreated outside past the smiling relatives on the patio to the back wall of the yard where he was afforded a distance from what he considered a collective insanity.
From this vantage point he could snoop about the formica structures of the nuptials' personal life without having to actually participate. The smooth, ill-chosen color schemes that make up the palor of our daily life, that slick looking ship, whale-sitting, something else lurking below, or at least Sil liked to think there was something below, that it was not afterall real marble, but only a veneer. It is, however, possible that we are in a nautical tale after all, and that the whales have been hunted down, disgorged of oil and discarded in a heap of newspaper graveyards that we drive by thinking privately, good god, did you see that? Though this seemed unlikely to Sil, standing, as he was, in the middle of a vast desert. And so he smoked drolly and watched. Trying hard to not look aloof, though realizing that everyone thought he was being aloof.
If fact he was not being aloof. He was simply without a protective formica coating which led him to kind of shyness that came off as aloof and made him even more nervous than he already was. In situations like this smoking was kind of defense or perhaps warning since he was only one who thought he might not look nervous. Janine had already told him 'try and relax, you're making me feel calm,' which of course just made him more self conscious.
Janine seemed to flit between conversations somehow managing to not ever really have one. Sil admired her from a distance and continued to lean against the rough cement wall, glancing around occasionally to watch the sun sink down behind the Catalina Mountains. Distant clouds were beginning to turn a pinkish cast. He was unable to flit. He had never flitted in his entire life. Flitting seemed to him something only tiny grayish birds were capable of, darting between branches that wouldn't have supported the weight of Sil's clumsy hands. And yet, every time he turned away from the mountains, Janine was flitting.
He huffed the last few drags of nicoteen and resolving to, if not flit, at least mingle with his relations, he propelled himself off the cement wall and was headed toward the sliding door when dark a hand brushed his shoulder. He turned half expecting some dark skinned unicorn that the Norse myths had failed to account for, but was greeted simply by eyes he did not recognize.
"You don't know how much it means to Janine that you came to the wedding," he said. "And it means alot to me too," he added.
Sil mumbled something about it being no problem and slowly settled into the realization that this was the boyfriend he had never paid attention to. The boyfriend had darkish skin and seemed indistinct to Sil, He was quite confident that we would not recognize the face when it stepped to the alter tomorrow. He did have a distant recollection of story Janine told slowly and with a lot of emphasis on a parking garage, though he couldn't say for sure if this were that boyfried or another. Nor for that matter could he say for sure that the story involved a boyfriend but he was sure about the parking garage.
[more]
\ No newline at end of file diff --git a/unseen/research/tucson/tucson2.txt b/unseen/research/tucson/tucson2.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd24030 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/research/tucson/tucson2.txt @@ -0,0 +1,270 @@ +"Mama says the sand massages your gums and makes them soft and then your teeth fall out and you chew them up in dreams when you're anxious you're anxious arencha Claire?" + +"Who told you I was anxious? Do you even know what anxious means?" + +"Momma says you're anxious cause you're tyin soon and you loose everything and your teeth fall out." + +"How old are you Darren?" + +"I'll be eight soon." + +"And your mother told you I was nervous..." + +"No she said anxious." + +"Right. Anxious, because I'm..." + +"Because soon you'll be pregnant and fat and you'll start dreaming your teeth is falling out." + +"Are falling out." + +"Are falling out." + +Claire regarded her nephew and for a moment considered telling him everything just to spite his mother, but instead she grabbed the green and purple Supersoaker from the middle of the table and abruptly ended timeout in favor of distraction. Darren shrieked and took off across the gravel yard headed for the back gate. Claire arched the stream of water up but it was too late, he disappeared through the gate and into the desert. + +It was too hot to give chase. Claire walked out into the gravel yard swinging the squirt gun from her finger and stepping carefully between barrel cacti and Cholla, the nastiest of the Sonora's spiny, rather unfriendly inhabitants. The minute she emerged from under the slatted patio cover she could feel the midday sun seering her pale skin. She glanced at her arms as if they might have already, in five minutes time, began to burn. She called out to Darren but heard nothing. Probably he had gone down the street to his friend's house. + +Darren's mother was looking out at Claire from behind the sliding glass door, she waved from behind the glass, comfortable in her air conditioned cocoon; Claire smiled and waved back stifling the urge to mouth bitch at her. Claire's aunt lived just outside of Tucson, the patio was atop a small hill overlooking the Catalina foothills and the vast expanse of desert just west of them. Finding an relatively clear, cactus free area Claire leaned her head back and shot a stream of water straight up in the air. She closed her eyes and opened her mouth with her tongue extended waiting for the water to return to earth, which it eventually did, splattering her face and causing her to cough, choke briefly and start laughing. + +Claire had heard the chewing sand story about a million times, from her aunt, her uncle, her mother, the whole damn family, the only one of them that never seemed to tell the story was the one person who had actually chewed sand. It was a story told so many times it had ceased to have any meaning, it had been reduce to words, sounds formed with mouths and lips but completely divorced from comprehension or understanding. Claire had always felt bad for the story, like it was blushing every time it heard itself start, sort of how Claire felt when her father introduced her again to his neighbor whom she had known for the better part of a decade. Claire could never decide whether her father actually thought she hadn't met the man or whether he was simply too excited to introduce her to his friend to consider that he had already done so many times. And she had long ago decided everyone telling the sand chewing story was simply too excited to stop themselves. It was the best story the family had. In some ways it was the only story they had. + +Claire walked back to the table and lit a cigarette. She took another sip of the now almost hot wine that remained in the plastic cup her Aunt had thrust in her hand earlier. it tasted a bit like peach juice, but in the heat it had the desired effect rather rapidly. She decided to see where Darren had gone and wandered back through the yard and out into the river gully running just beyond the back fence. + +At the end of the street the river bed disappeared mysteriously into a drain pipe and was not seen again above ground for twenty miles or so. Claire picked her way up the embankment and climbed a small hill where she sat down and finished her cigarette. The desert below was sketched out in watercolor hues of sand and rock that surged together over the rolling canvas until all that remained was the sensation of washed out pink with only the river and its groves of Palo Verde and Mesquite standing out from the blushing sand. Claire felt the river as an after thought, an architect's final over-the-top push on an otherwise sedate and monochromatic palette. She could hear the committee, we simply must have water, you have got to put water in there somewhere, and so the frustrated and overworked architect picked up a muddy green brush and simply drizzled it Pollack-like on the ground. The desert had countless hidden details not visible from the observatory position Claire occupied. + +Claire watched the river and wondered what its name actually meant. It seemed odd to her that she had lived next to or around the Rialto River for so many years without ever wondering what the word meant. + +She felt as if she were herself a desert only recently become aware that someone had flung a river down on her. Or with desert ambivalence she had always had a river running around her but had simply never noticed it. What then does the desert make of the river? This was the thought that had propelled her outside, away from couch bound relatives, inquisitive nephew in tow. As she studied the scene that was cascading down the slope and away from the organization of the manicured patio and yard, she decided that the desert seemed to ignore the river entirely. The river was starting to flood, somewhere far upstream three days rain had been feeding until it swelled like a Christmas ham, but ten yards on either side and it was sand again. Stagnant pink sand interspersed with prickly plants and clumps of sagebrush and Mesquite trees, ironwood her grandfather called it. The sand didn't care for the water, didn't hold onto it, didn't even try, just let the water flow right on over it, puddle and collect, run off and feed into the river. Farther in the distance there were the mountains ringing the desert, keeping watch over it, making sure it behaved in some general way. + + + + + + + +To some people the desert is a hot wind at the gas station, something passing through and to be passed through. Others see a sunny retreat from cold wind billowing off northern lakes. Some see it as an endless playground of sunshine, golf and hotel pools. Some are just born into it and forget to leave. Claire did not think she looked nervous or worried. She suspected that her older and more malicious nephew had put the younger up to this sort of thing. She felt she had composed herself rather well throughout the evening, dealt admirably with the blistering afternoon heat and then amicably with the barely known relative and extended family that stopped by to wish her well. It alarmed her that she could so completely separate the words coming out of her mouth from the ones forming in her mind. When will they slip over, some sort of damn break loose and everything comes tumbling out. She thought of the sea gulls leaping into the air, they hunched slightly coiling up to spring of the ground and then their wings lifted them into the wind. + + +She glanced back at the patio to see if anyone was watching her and, satisfied that they were all busy, she sent her nephew inside. She slipped over the wrought iron fence and lowered herself down to the sand. There was a trail leading down in the general direction of the river and Claire followed it walking slowly and keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes and scorpions. A breeze had begun almost as soon as the sun sunk behind the Catalina Mountains, not strong enough to bend the stiff twiggy branches of desert trees, it moved though in whispers, puffs of air brushing against her cheek. She thought of airports, hospitals, departure points, the shuffling of human feet moving in and out of rooms like last quiet sighs of breath. The noise of the river grew louder as she drew near it. She stopped and sat down on a large rock nestled half under the branches of a Mesquite Tree. After making sure no one had followed her. She took a cigarette from the crumpled pack hidden in the back pocket of her jeans. She didn't immediately light it, but held it under her nose inhaling the sweet faintly chemical smell of unlit nicotine. Daniel did not see the simple joys of smoking, he was capable only of the bad things, the death, the cancer, the disease, things Claire recognized, but did not allow to write the whole story. She had tried to tell him one afternoon on the beach. Don't you love the smell of nicotine? Don't you love that you can feel the smoke slipping between your fingers? I love that feeling; it makes me want to slide off a silk robe at the edge of a warm bathtub. Don't you love when your hands get that smell of oily blacktop after a thunderstorm? He had stared at her in disbelief. Claire was going to quit; she already knew that, she just wanted an admission that there was some beauty, some tangible good in a cigarette, that the end of the story was not just death and disease. + + ** ** ** ** ** ** + + + +Ambrose had just stepped out into the evening heat when the cloud of dust forced him to close his eyes and entirely miss the bumpy, lurching arrival of the truck. He was still standing in the shadows of the garage wiping his face with a greasy rag when he heard the door slam and the inevitable gravel crunch of footsteps coming his way. Squinting against the glare of the setting sun he stepped out of the shadows and was just able to make out a figure limping toward him when a woman's voice startled him. + + +"Sorry about the dust." + + +He turned toward her and shrugged as if to say that it was expected. She had already removed the cap from the gas tank and stood dragging what Ambrose thought of as a dainty leather boot in a half circle through the gravel. Three girls still sitting atop a pile of trundles and suitcases in the back of the truck were squirming in a fit of giggles. Ambrose noticed the girl in the middle, her mouth was laughing, but her eyes were much more piercing than the two that were clearly her siblings. He eyes seemed to be reflecting the first bit of sunset so the she looked a little on fire, which added to intensity of her gaze. Ambrose felt suddenly uncomfortable. The image of her eyes stayed in front of his even after he turned his face away. He could feel her eyes burning, he felt himself somehow caught in them, he began to sweat. He tried to busy himself with pumping gas, but regrettably it took little concentration. He looked at the pump and let the glare of the setting sun momentarily blind him. A strange loping sound caused him to look away and as color slowly returned to field of vision a strange figure took shape. A man slightly older than himself was limping across the gravel driveway. He had a curious way of walking, one side of him appeared to be badly crippled, from polio, Ambrose guessed, but the other side of him looked like it could pull down a charging steer with it's one good arm. Consequently he sort of loped to his left, dragging his right behind him. + + +Ambrose turned back around and found the woman studying him. + + +"That's my son Jim." + + +"Oh." + + +"The polio gave him that way of walking..." + + +"I figured." Ambrose mumbled, unsure what to say. + + +"The doctors told me he would never walk again and that it was best to keep him in a dark corner of the house and try to forget about him. Well, they didn't say that exactly, but that was what they meant. As you can see He had other ideas." + + +"Yes, ma'am. Never liked doctors." + + +"Well, they also told me to come to Arizona on account of my husband. They said that the clean air would be good for his tuberculosis." + + +She gestured to the back of the truck and Ambrose stood on his tiptoes and looked over the slated wormwood sides to noticed that the bed of the truck was outfitted with a crumpled mattress upon which a very much dead looking man was reclined. For a moment Ambrose thought he might indeed have perished on the journey, but then the eyes opened and revealed a glassy pained look that was quickly swallowed in a cacophony of hacking desolate sounds. The three girls had ceased their laughter and were staring liquid eyed in Ambrose's direction. All three seemed relatively unconcerned with the fit of coughing emitting from the reclining man. + + +She paid him in coins and the crippled man climbed back in the passenger's side of the truck. The engine coughed back to life after a few sputters that Ambrose attributed to a grungy distributor cap. The truck crept across the gravel drive and lurched out onto Prince road. Ambrose watched them for while, long enough to see brake lights in front of Vida court. I knew it he thought. He turned around and walked back into the garage and grabbed his cigarettes. He pulled down the garage doors, yanked the chain that turned on and off the lighted sign that Mr. Munson was so proud off, visible from the highway he said, though Ambrose lacked car so he couldn't say for sure. He made his usual tour of the building turning off lights and locking doors. He flipped the open sign over and stepped outside locking the front door behind him. Satisfied, Ambrose fished out a cigarette and lit it, pausing for a moment, watching the thunderheads over the Catalina Mountains begin evening's journey toward crimson. After a moment he shoved his hands in his pockets and began walking down the street toward the Vida Court. + + ** ** ** ** ** ** + + + +The Rialto River was indeed rising. Claire reached behind her and unself-consciously pulled the back of her shirt down even with the hem of her pants so that the scar didn't show. But she didn't do it to hide the scar she did it because she had always done it because there had nearly always been the scar and the memory of needles and the clear antiseptic smell of epinephrine the wheezing drowning pull at the bottom of her lungs the suffocating crush. This is what they mean--jitters--rocks and branches and trees pouring down bouncing roughly off boulders and riverbanks. Dancing to some hidden rhythm of water. Flash floods do not simply flood Claire noticed as she watched the water rising. They pulse and surge and course through the desert. They have their own rhythm, their own metabolism, their own consumption and digestion. They breathe in the dry air and expel moisture, humid vapors, a mist that steams off the surrounding banks. She thought of her grandmother. The cigarette burned down between her fingertips. And the desert going and going. + + ** ** ** ** ** ** + + + +Emma had developed a peculiar fascination with chewing sand. It came to her mouth as a dry film licked off her lips with absent-minded desperateness. At first she had constantly pressed her lips up to gap between the boards and, gently as possible, spit it out. But then one spit whipped in the wind of a passing Chevy had flown back and hit Jack in the eye. After enduring Jack's response she explored other options and had happened on the fact that you can chew sand. You cannot, however, gargle sand as Maggie suggested. + + +So from western Oklahoma onward she had been chewing sand and now, disembarked from the truck bed she violently spat it on a cactus and resolved to never do it again. Though licking her lips inside the motel room still drew into her mouth the seemingly ever-present dusty film. + + +Perhaps the whole west is just one thin dusty film. Certainly the hotel room was saturated with fine grit that crept through the screens all day every time it could find a gust of wind to hitch a ride on. + + +Jack had gone around the building and Emma could hear him taking to the mechanic about the weather. What this place needs Emma thought is good long afternoon shower to put the damn dust back in it's place. To put it down. + + +There was nowhere to sit inside. The boys had laid Father out on the bed and Mama was giving him a glass of water and some saltines. They were talking in low voices that Emma could not make out. She went outside to help with the luggage and have a look around. + + +The Vida Court was, well Emma reasoned, it was better than sitting atop trundles in the back of the flatbed wedge between sweaty siblings and a mucus and blood spewing father. And that was about all that could be said of it. It was not, for instance, a ten-room farmhouse with three floors and a tornado cellar. Nor was it surrounded by endless acres of imported genuine Kentucky bluegrass with a semicircle of drooping cottonwood trees growing around the pond. There was no pond. There was no second story. There was a bathtub though, and after waiting for both Maggie and Betty to finish, she was allowed the privacy of the bathroom for twenty minutes. + + +It was only after she removed her stockings that she realized how thoroughly the sand had saturated her. Or perhaps she thought briefly, perhaps my thighs have tanned through these skirts, but no it was the dusty film of Oklahoma and New Mexico that had flown up under her skirt and surrendered now to the refreshing cold of the bath water. + + +Emma began to hum bits of a song Mama used to sing when she was younger. Emma wished Mama would still sing to her even though she was nearly seventeen and didn't want to ask. It was no fun if you had to ask. Before the dust and the wheezing Mama used to sing all the time, just softly singing as she went about the house, without thinking of anyone hearing her, she would just sing whatever rose up inside her. Emma's earliest memories were of wanting to sing, but not knowing how. She could not dance either. Father would not let her dance, had given her a bad whipping when he caught her trying to sneak out to a dance. And then the TB laid him down, but by then everyone else already knew how to dance and they seemed to have left Emma behind, skidding wheels and a swirl of sand, bam they were gone. And now so was she. Perhaps people in Tucson danced. Father had complained that they were moving to Mexico and then gone on tirades about Mexicans and rape and a war Emma only dimly remembered from school. Lawlessness was the word she remembered from his hoarse shouting. Lawlessness was a word that made her legs tingle in the bath. Made the running water a throatier sound and her heart raced for a minute. Emma had never thought of lawlessness as a bad thing. Lawlessness did not seem to have a belt or switch and so she had no reason to fear it. After all Father had called the Elson twins lawless and godless and Emma got along with them just fine. + + +He obviously couldn't see her; at least she was pretty sure he couldn't see her. She couldn't see him very clearly either, the light was fading but there was still a dark frame in a chair on the porch. She was standing in the bathtub dripping water and watching the shadow for signs of movement. + + +Jack pounded on the door again. "Come on Emma, I want to clean up too..." + + +She ignored him and continued watching the mechanic. She was hoping he would get off the porch and chop wood or do something, but there probably wasn't much call for wood this time of year. He just sat there, tipping his chair back and forth sucking on a beer that had already gone warm. + + +She put on a clean dress and evacuated the bungalow as fast as she could without raising undue suspicions. The sun was already gone, but the air still had traces of the heat. She walked around the cacti and was tempted to touch the thorns of a small squat variety. She reached out her hand and ran it from the center out and down the edge, careful to keep her hand moving with the hooked direction of the needles. + + +"So ya'll sold your farm, bought the truck and hauled your dad out here for some fresh air huh?" + + +The voice startled her enough that she almost leaned on the cactus for support, but at the last second realized the stupidity of doing so. + + +"Sorry?" + + +"You sold the farm, bought the truck and here you are, TB and all." + + +"Something like that." + + +"We get quite a few passing through these days..." + + +"Oh we're staying I believe." + + +"I'm Ambrose" + + +He extended his hand and she stepped out of the cacti and took it in her own. + + +"Emma." + + ** ** ** ** ** ** + + + + +The newspaper said that the wet season was coming, that leaving now was a blessing, that the hurricanes would be worse this year, that the Bahamas would persist, that tourism is a curse, that citizens of the islands must bear the curse, that every place has it's curse, that eventually all the curses will combine, that everything will be cursed, that the curse is not so bad, that loneliness is a curse, that loneliness is different than alone, that still the coffee is quite good at the caf... Claire set the paper down and looked out the window at the terminal, the beads of water forming on the wings of the plane. She looked at the ring on her finger and tried to remember just when she had said yes. She knew she had not said no, but she wasn't sure she had said yes. She had been thinking about Otherness when she noticed he was on one knee which made sense now because she knew he was not traveler, the island, the plane, the waterfront hotel, all in preparation for something. She had her suspicions but she had accepted them as she accepted other premonitions, vague inklings and star crossings. Just prior to the knee dropping they walked up over a dune and were confronted with a flock of seagulls sitting on the sand. Or rather some were sitting some were standing; one was even perched on one leg. Daniel had once said he didn't enjoy traveling, the memory of which had put her in the mind of otherness. He did not like other, he liked familiar. As she had moved forward the seagulls parted, but did not fly off, they watched warily as Claire passed between them. And then he had said wait and, startled at the sound the gulls had taken off. She paused on the sand turning over in her head a notion that perhaps otherness was not possible. That there was no other and that the very existence of an other implied it was not other at all, but part of, which left what exactly? Surprise airline tickets, tropical islands, but Claire spent her time thinking about terminals and the fascinating cant of airplane wings. He wanted to lie on the beach and she had spent her time taking walks through the arid landscape across the road from the hotel. Thinking that after five hours of flying it ought to look different than Tucson, but there it was, the same granular existence of eroded rock, thrown up by the sea and broken down slowly over time to become individual grains. Was there an irreducible limit? Was Daniel back there lying on the final forms, a great soft graveyard in front of the laughing ocean, or would eventually everything turn finer, move to silt and dust inhabiting nostrils and forming a film around her lips? Claire thought about the walk back the clich juice peddler saying ya mon to obligatory tourists and then she had showered. Daniel was insistent that they go for a walk after dinner though she was not feeling romantic. Claire wanted to go home and read and fall asleep thinking about aloneness, if it should happen to exist, might she cuddle with it? Wrap it up in Butterfly kisses? Was it simply that we move through our lives alone and that aloneness convinces us that there is an other, that there is some place our aloneness can lead us, was that the delusion we were under and to think that at such a moment he decides to get down on that knee. That is something other. Daniel on his knee looking up at her with his warm smile and saccharine eyes. The crying of the gulls faded and mixed with the sounds of the surf a muddled sound. Claire looked out and watched them arcing low across the horizon, skimming the crest of the small waves. Claire started to cry because she knew that aloneness was not alone, that to find the other you first had to find yourself, that no one had ever found themselves, that the closest we get is finding ourselves in others, in public, in private, in groups, in cultures, in the rain, on the beach, in bed, in airplanes. The gulls were behind her now circling back around and coming up from behind. She sat down on the beach next to him and took his hand in hers and stroked the sand out from between his fingers watching the gulls' circle around and return to their spot atop the dunes. The settled down in waves, the larger shape crumbling out of the air into individual birds, no longer a flock in flight. They skittered as they touched down, some of them sitting, some standing, a few again on one leg, a marvelous balancing act. When the last one had landed and settled itself and all of them turned with their beaks pointed into the wind the seemed once again a single entity, a flock. Daniel was speaking but Claire could not hear what he was saying, it could be inferred from the dramatic action involved, she left herself in a silent film, muted and trapped suddenly in her head. Trapped with ceaseless circular thoughts that created a rarified atmosphere, an unpressurized cabin that sometimes made her dizzy after making love. All she could think about was saying excuse me to a passing stranger on the stairs. + + +The engines beginning to wind up for the yoyo. The plane lurched and backed away from the gate. She noticed a few stubborn seagulls standing to the side of the runway while they taxied about. They didn't seem to mind the noise or the hot scream of air out the back of the jets. Claire imagined one of them taking to air and the exact wrong moment the spray of feather and blood from the whirling turbine and then Daniel's big plan undone by a seagull. She had read of such things in the newspaper. She half smiled at the thought of death by bird. I am a turbine she thought, whirling and never moving only pushing things out behind me in the hopes that by expelling them they will somehow propel me. Pushing the Bahamas now behind me, trying to rise up, wing flaps lowered, the rush of wind passing over me. Lifting. + + +Later she would be alone in the night. She would go to the window of another hotel in Tucson and think of the last hotel, think for quite sometime about the notion of pair bonding as her cousin called it. She would turn and look at Daniel lying asleep in the bed and know that she had never said excuse me, had never passed him on the stairs. She would stand perfectly still and let tears run down her face without sobbing, without wracking her chest and she would cry no more after that. + + +She turned from the window now and looked at Daniel ensconced in the cramped airline seat. She lifted up the armrest between them, drew her body close to his. She placed his hand between hers and set them in bundle on the warm skin of her thigh. She smiled and laid her head on his shoulder to sleep. + + + ** ** ** ** ** ** + + + +"Emma!" His voice half a whisper half a shout. He looked around for another stone, but when he straightened up again she was already halfway out the window. They crept through the back yard and down through the Palo Verde snarls to the banks of the Rialto. They did not dare speak until they were quite sure they were clear of the house. Once the babble of the water became stronger he stopped and she crashed into his body. He started to say something, but she smothered his mouth with a kiss. + + +Later lying on their backs on the blanket looking up at the stars she told him. + + +"Father ran off with the nurse." She propped herself up on his chest, her thin fingers retrieved the Camel from his lips and brought it to her own. + + +Ambrose sat up with a start. "What is?" + + +"Mother is taking a job at the hotel. Jack is going to ask Munson about your job." Emma nuzzled against his bare chest and sighed. She flicked the cigarette off into the bushes and pulled herself up to Ambrose's lips. + + +Between kisses he managed to say, "Munson will hire him, I'll make sure of it." + + +"Of course you will." She stopped kissing for a moment and stared at his blue eyes flickering with hummingbird lashes. "You aren't going to get Malaria are you?" + + +"Do they have malaria in Panama?" + + +"Of course. And snakes and worms and all sorts of nastiness. It's a jungle you know." + + +"I'll be fine Emma." + + +"Kiss me like it's the first time you've ever kissed me." She closed her eyes and raised her eyebrows puckishly. He tried to imagine how he would kiss a stranger, but realized he would not. There is no way to kiss a stranger. Perhaps a peckish kiss on the lips. She giggled and said no not like a stranger, like me, but for the first time. Or he reasoned you could kiss a stranger roughly like the whore in Bisbee who he was pretty sure had raped him, though he hadn't minded really. But he didn't want to kiss Emma like a whore. All the people that we kiss in life he thought, so many different types of kisses, of hugs, of contact. All the meanings that can be conveyed without words. Words could stumble and fall where the brush of lips never faltered to convey, or the words he could write as his fingers dragged down the back of her linen blouse, her breasts pressed to his chest, the full weight of her on top of him sinking into him. She could feel herself collapsing, folding into the rough hair of his chest her legs entwined with his. There is a pressing and decompressing that happens during sex, some melding alchemical process she could feel rising from him and investing her with a vaporousness that lasted longer than sex itself. + + +Ambrose lay on the blanket watching her crouched at the rivers edge skipping rock out toward the middle like a little girl. She was wrapped in a blanket that opened up as she crouched down revealing the still milky skin of her shoulders. He marveled that after two years she still did not have so much as a hint of brown about her. They had already agreed that they would marry when he returned from Panama. He did not at that moment realize that his daughter would be at the wedding, but he would not have cared if he had known. He wanted to get married now because he felt like he could not die without being married. He felt he would be missing some essential part of experience if he were to simply march off as so many of friends were ready to do. Most of them glad in fact that have the excuse, to regularly use the excuse at the dance hall parties. One more before I go darling Ambrose felt sorry for them without knowing why. He watched the girl skipping rocks by the river. She looked luminous and reminded him of the stellar calendar Munson had pinned up at the garage. Photographs taken from a telescope, the first of their kind Munson claimed. Ambrose sat and stared at it for hours when Munson wasn't around. He had memorized every description. He could even find Orion's belt. He glanced up at the sky and could dimly see it through the branches of the tree. He remembered the first day and burning eyes that he had to turn away from, but now those eyes seem more of glow than the piercing he had originally perceived. He thought of them like giant nebulas, like the stars of Orion's belt, especially the reddish one at the top. She yelled something from the edge of the river that he could not understand. He stood up still naked and walked toward her. + + ** ** ** ** ** ** + + + +Claire's grandfather's voice startled her. + + +"I heard you gave those up," he smiled. + + +"I say a lot of things" + + +"So do I, mind if I bum one?" + + +She hesitated, "it's not going to give your heart attack or anything is it?" + + +He shrugged. "I don't know, but it's about time for me to be getting along anyway, so let me live a little before I go." + + +She gave him her cigarette and fished out another for herself. She studied his face as he smoked, wondering what how it looked, young and smooth, before eighty years spent in and out of the desert sun. With some difficulty borne of age he managed to lower himself to the ground and sat down next to her. He began talking about Gamma and the river and things that had happened years ago, but Claire could not hear him. Try as she might she could not follow the words and instead could only wonder what oldness was made of, what shape death takes as it draws nearer and nearer. Or perhaps it takes no clearer shape than what she could see from her own thirty years, perhaps it's life that has sharper shape when death approaches and I will be caught between them unsure where to run. She watched a skink darting in and out the rocks and shade at the edge of the tree. The fern frond leaves of the Mesquite dropped and seemed to want to head toward the ground, or perhaps only knew that it was futile to try and go up in this heat. Up where it is only hotter she reasoned. If life begins in pleasure and ends in pain is it therefore necessarily futile? Is it just an expansive joke, me being the product of endless strangers' pleasure, rooted in their bellies and born through their legs only to end in pain? And what? Along the way move to feel my own pleasure and bear out strangers of my own, slowly plodding toward the pain. She thought of Aldus Huxley and his anesthetized hallucinatory suicide. Was that cheating? Was the pain necessary? Was it still possible to die with grace, naturally, without the infest of disease, that later day stranger come to roost itself like so many passenger pigeons returned home? She thought of the seagulls standing on the leeward side of the dune. They did not fly until they heard the voice, until the words were in the air, that was simply too much for them, they had to leave. Is that why they slap the baby's bottom, that sound to drive off the seagulls, the pigeons, to send them packing out into the world until latter when they had gathered up their messages, the spare change of phone calls never placed and came back bearing cancer and heart attacks and the cornucopia of disease that waits for me. + + +Claire heard him now indistinct at first, she heard her grandmother's name and knew that grandfather did not mention it often; it startled her to hear it. She thought of her grandmother's pain, swept up in the rising river, the boulders, she knew from whispered family stories that the body was never found. That the desert had claimed her for its own. Gamma's birds returned home to roost bearing such messages as to forever wipe her from the face of the earth, until she existed only as dim memories repeated by her mother and her aunt and now her grandfather talking of Gamma's love for the river, how she had always wanted to be in the river and how it reminded her of a pond she swam in as a child before the dust and the sickness of her father had come back to roast and how perhaps that was her way of seeing different birds come back into the barn, she did not want She knew Claire. He is looking her straight in the eyes and repeating it. Their eyes met and held for a moment, his moist tiny universes floating in a saline ether with faint but visible stars beginning to glow behind them. + + ** ** ** ** ** ** + + + + +The ceiling fan was spinning slowly like the reel of a tape machine or a movie projector except that it was old and broken and to get it to work at all, Ambrose had reversed to drive mechanism in the motor. His once skilled mechanical hands had turned clumsy and slow. It was not until he had the motor back together that he realized his error. Now it played backwards, rewinding, pulling air up instead of blowing it down. He lay on the bed in near darkness watching a fly that had been bussing about him all day. It was now entering its death throws, or seemed to be. It reminded him of the cockroaches on the troop ship steaming past New Guinea. He watched the fly die slowly, taking a few staggering steps then resting, staggering some more. He enjoyed the fly's motion much more than the memories of the flying New Guinea cockroaches which went through a similar motion, but with less grace. The cockroaches had a frantic clinging quality to their death walk that had made them endearing at the time, stuck as he was, treated like a cockroach. But now the thought of the motion seemed to him distant and inappropriate. He enjoyed much more the seemingly sublime subtlety of the fly, less a stagger, nothing in its motion was so heroic as a stagger, more of a final stroll, stopping now to wipe it's eyes with it's little fingerlike antennae, not altogether different from what Ambrose might do if he still took walks. But he did not so he lay and watched the ceiling fan rewind. + + +The troop ship had been infested with cockroaches. At night you could hear them beating themselves against the faded dull lime colored steal of the hull. They would chew at the tough salty skin of your fingers and feet until you woke up nearly unable to walk, though some of that was due to the varieties of tropical funguses the men had acquired, all of which kept Ambrose and his medical kit fairly busy during the day. He remembered at the time he hated the fact that everyone else sat around all day, but now he recognized that he had retained his sanity because his mind was occupied. And of course there had been no ceiling fan, rewinding or otherwise, just the deathly still tropical air and crazy cockroaches battering themselves against the walls until they broke their wings and began to limp about on the floor like characters from Beckett novel. + + +The sun was gone now only a dull bluish light visible around the edges of the curtains which Ambrose kept drawn all day to cut the heat. The fly was wondering off toward the end of bed where without warning it begin to slip and once moving did not have the strength to stop itself, or perhaps just decided that anything was better than this and it slid out of sight into the black depths between the bed and wall. How beautiful he thought watching it disappear, to just slide like that, just slide right out of existence. The water that came to his eyes was not for her anymore, but for himself. For having remained behind, for having to perpetuate everything out of some duty, some servitude to forces he could not understand, could not make sense of and long ceased to care about. He heard the first splattering sounds of rain hit the windowpane, muffled splatters dulled by the heavy draperies, which he was too lazy to pull back even now that the heat had begun to abate. He remembered standing on the railing of the ship, under the cover of the upper deck walkway watching the water pour off the side in sheets, holding the papers in his hand still though he had read them a thousand times in the two days since they had called him up to the command deck and solemnly handed them to him. Some lost legs, some arms, some hands and feet, some guts, some organs, some sanity, some love. It was the last of these he could not help. There were no tools or medicines in his pack for them. His was not a dear John letter, he wished that it was, he deeply wished that it was something so simple as falling out of love, finding someone else, these things would fit the shape of war. But he got a War Department letter. A change of billet. A plane ticket home. As soon as the tub reached New Guinea the war for him was lost already. Two days outside of port he decided that indeed he did not matter either and as discreetly as possible he stepped out into the rain and climbed up the deck railing. Below the sea was pitching softly, above the first stars already showing. He had it in mind to let the ship decide, to let the bashing insanity of the cockroaches, the randomness of their lives which had taken over the world completely, decide whether he returned or not, but before he had the chance to test randomness the ship pitch violently away and he was sent flying back hitting his head against steel bulk head. He still remembered the one inane thought he mustered before passing out. I did not know you could see Orion this far south. + + +Lying in bed at night he watched the fan turn and thought it over and over again. I did not know. That was what gathered meaning over the years. Orion remained incidental. Ambrose had come to believe that knowing was not experience, nor abstraction. He was not in fact sure that he knew what knowing was at all. He still did not know. Knowing had careened around him a roulette ball bouncing on a wheel or maybe bouncing all over the table like a cue ball or maybe knowing has nothing to do with balls, maybe its more like time-lapse footage of clouds on the Discovery Channel, puffs form and dissipate and form anew and on and on. What it was he had not know at that moment was incidental, trivial and nothing compared to what he did not know now. + +Ambrose stood and wiped the seat of his pants. With some grunting and difficulty he ducked out from beneath the thorny branches of the Mesquite Tree. He looked at Claire sitting with her back toward him, leaning against the trunk of the tree, only strands of her black hair really visible and even those blending confusingly with the black bark of the tree. He wanted to say something, but wasn't sure what it was. He wanted there to be some closure, some satisfactions, but knew there was neither available. So he said nothing and turned back toward the house hobbling and crouched from age. + + +Claire watched him go and reached into her hip pocket for another cigarette. The water was beginning to spill over the banks. They would be running the ticker tape at the bottom of television. Flash flood warning in effect. Tomorrow the newspaper would say that perhaps someone had died, that the desert is a curse, that the desert is barren and a curse, that a new golf course is going to be built on the hillside, that perhaps the treat of flooding is the price we pay for sunshine, that coffee is still good at Claire stood up from the rock and started to follow the train closer to the river. She knelt beside the lapping edge and listened to rumble of the deeper waters. She reached behind her and pulled her shirt down over her back. She smoothed the creases of her pants and turned to walk back to the house. + diff --git a/unseen/unseenoutline.jpg b/unseen/unseenoutline.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2405b85 --- /dev/null +++ b/unseen/unseenoutline.jpg |
