Experiments in Time Travel

November 12, 2009 at 8:11 pm (Humbly Submitted For Your Approval)

Everyone tells you that the first time someone breaks your heart time stops.

Metamorphosis

By honing one’s mind like a knife it is not unthinkable to cut through the fabrics between the universes...

That from the moment she says “It’s over” to the moment she turns the corner and you lose sight of her back time has already begun to slow until it has reached a halt.

Everyone lied.

When Sol finally broke the news to Hector time did not stop. Instead it accelerated and moments became instants and Hector found months passing like days until a year had passed and he found himself still alone.It was a terrible period in someone’s life to be alone, 23 and only just out of college with barely a career to speak of. It hurt him badly, left him broken and alone and unable to slow down. He just kept living without truly being aware of what was occurring, the days that were passing. It was a time in which Hector found himself sitting for hours on end, striking out at the stupid mistakes of his past as if the abuse would change anything. He did not know it yet but there would be other women. There always are. But for him Sol’s retreat was something like the Maya’s wayeb, nameless days that spelled out nothing but trouble.

On one of those nameless days, somewhere between then and now, Hector found himself reading in a café. The place itself was nothing special but it was out of the way of the tourists and that was an increasingly rare luxury around Manhattan. He slapped back his first shot of espresso as though it were alcohol, the gesture making him feel more like a man. Having been in the café for nearly three hours now, the book he had brought with him had run its course, families that betrayed each other and women who were ultimately the root of the destruction. His mind had begun to fidget and the mental tension began to manifest in his body, rapid tapping of the feet and hands that elicited long stares from other patrons. Not wanting to find himself on the street he went over to the long coffee table in the center of the lounge chairs and rifled through them. The large majority of magazines consisted of tabloids and he had long ago stopped caring about current events to want to read the newspapers. His only option turned out to be a science journal that had been released months back.

A return to the lounge chair and a few articles later and Hector found himself reading an article that had his mind running again, his feet playing a tattoo of anxiety that left the other patrons tapping with him to soothe the rhythm. The article documented a rogue scientist’s experiments in Berlin with the multiverse, a then hypothetical construction of the mind that attempted to explain déjà vu, doppelgangers and all other manner of unexplainable events.

Apparently the scientist had stumbled upon proof that there were other universes parallel to ours, on all sides, hundreds of thousands of millions of universes all scattered at the borders of ours. He had been working with the particle accelerators, projecting nano particles into the distance and finding that they disappeared after a certain distance. But due to the fact that they were simply too small to just disappear and too elementary to have broken down into smaller matter he attempted to track them. Before he could do this, the particles reappeared in totally different areas of the room. He was not sure whether these particles were his however and so he devised an experiment. Tagging each of the particles with a radioactive tracer he shot them through the accelerator again. This time when the particles returned it was with the tracer.

After analyzing the tracer he found that it had begun to disintegrate. The half-life for the tracer was approximately two hundred years. There was one eighth of the tracer left. This meant six hundred years had passed from when the particles had disappeared to now. The discovery was incredible. He had discovered a means of time travel. He began to attempt experiments with small animals, sending them through the accelerator and here was where the article began to truly interest Hector.When the animals returned they were also slightly different though the aging process found on the tracer was not seen. They were missing legs, fur color was different, eyes were mismatched. And then one of the animals that returned wasn’t the one sent through in the first place. In order to keep track and ensure that the animals that returned were the same the scientist had taken samples of their DNA in order to ensure their identities.

One day, having sent a cat through the accelerator and, the scientist found something that stole Hector’s breath away. The cat that returned was genetically ninety percent the same cat but the ten percent difference was along lines that were genetically and physically impossible. The cat had no fur; instead it was covered from head to toe in scales made from stone. Repeating the experiment a handful more times the scientist received similar results: birds composed of diamond feathers, snakes with the softest down scales one could imagine. The conclusion was a stretch, one that even the scientist in his article doubted but one that he begged the audience not to dismiss: we were walking, every day, parallel to universes that were similar to ours in nearly every way but different. The universe that we lived in was encased in a delicate bubble but one could step through it if they were able to sense the casing. He alluded to Buddhist monks who had told stories of such experiences, walking along the lines of the universe in order to see both halves, the millions of directions in which the universe can go. He finished the article like this: “By honing one’s mind like a knife it is not unthinkable to cut through the fabrics between the universes and discover these alternate directions.”

Hector did not even put the article down. He did not move from the seat for the rest of that day, becoming a fixture within the café. Those who worked there ignored him, he was so still that not even the customers were bothered by him, and as long as he was bothering no one it did not matter. Hector was still. His mind had begun focusing from the moment he read the last word. It was perfect coincidence, perfection in every way possible that Hector meditated religiously, every day for hours. After Sol it was the only way he could find peace.

But now he had a new way, a way to fix everything, to get her back and to finally reclaim his place of glory.

To control time.

There was no end to what he could do with this.

It was closing time. The lights had been dimmed and the food was all sealed and returned to the fridge, the espresso maker turned off and the money counted. Saul was tired now. He wanted to go home to his wife and kids. He wanted to move to Europe, to be out of this damn country where effort meant nothing and despite all the work he had put into school he had ended up here, as the owner of a café.

It was raining outside so he grabbed his umbrella from his office and then locked the door, heading towards the front and dark night. Making one last survey he noticed with dismay that there was someone still in the shop. Upon closer inspection, he sighed and walked over to the man. He had been here since early afternoon. He’d ordered a coffee and then sat down in one of the lounge chairs and not risen again. Now he sat in the same lounge chair in a corner of the café, draped in shadows. Saul figured he was probably crazy and approached him carefully, hand in his pocket on the mace that he carried with him everywhere. The man’s eyes were like the eyes of a man in a billboard, following Saul no matter where he went even though they didn’t appear to be moving. Saul was only five feet from the man when he stopped. He didn’t know why he stopped but there was something not quite right about him. Eyes that had appeared to be watching Saul were, upon closer inspection, not looking anywhere. Still despite the vacancy of the stare, it somehow appeared to be intensifying, arriving closer at a destination that Saul could not identify or see.

The lights that were still on in the café began to flicker, the light creating crags along the man’s face. A smile spread across his face and Saul, stepping back, shuddered. In the shadows, Saul could not be sure but he thought he saw a third arm sprout from underneath his left arm and then a fourth from beneath his right. They slithered momentarily as though the arms of some demented Eastern idol. Other transformations began to occur, his skin shattered, developing crags and cliffs that no longer appeared to be made from skin but something harder, like a rock. Saul could do nothing but watch the horrid metamorphosis.

The man’s eyes began to rise, the smile still upon his face as though in mockery of everything that had ever been or would be. Saul wanted to say something, to do something but found himself frozen. As the man’s eyes reached Saul’s he disappeared. An instant later he was inches from Saul’s face, his eyes probing Saul and then he was gone. He appeared outside the café, arms writing, legs exploding from his torso in places where legs were never meant to be and begins to stroll down the block. He disappears around the corner.

And finally Saul begins to scream.

Hector hears the scream as he starts down the block but he does not care. He is something more now and these screams don’t matter to him. The manifestation of the limbs is not some odd mutation but a perfect representation of time itself. The arms are doing things that he would have done, or could have done, or should have done, and the legs are attempting to take him directions he had not even considered. It is harder to maintain balance maybe, harder to even breath but he knows now what he must do.

The streets are dark, there is no one to see him, no one to witness this first glorious step into a new era. Street lamps reflect off the black asphalt, and the bare autumn trees whisper to each other, the wind running through their proud nakedness. It is lonely, still so lonely, and he picks up his pace, needing to get there now. And then he stops because he has forgotten that he no longer needs to walk, no longer needs to do anything. He focuses, splits the fabric and finds himself in her room.

She sits over a desk, writing. She looks older to him but she is still beautiful. The days have been lonely for her too but he of course does not know that. We never recognize the pain of others. The room is bare and it makes him shiver, his arms, all of them, the thousands that sprout from everywhere rub his body until he is warm. She hears the sound of those many arms stroking skin and she turns.

The look of terror that spreads across her face is not what he expected. He has not yet seen himself nor does he care to. He just wants the loneliness to go away. She screams. The noise tears through his eyes, and the hands want it to stop.

In some universe, in some time he would have killed her for this, would have stopped it, the only way possible. So the hands take control now and the feet follow, stepping closer and wrapping around her neck. She can’t scream anymore now, the screams become gurgles and soon the sound is no more.

The arms writhe and Hector stands in the middle of the room again focusing. He is not trying to tear the fabric this time. His face is a collage of different eyes and different lips, different actions being taken all at one moment. One set of lips is howling its anguish while another laughs. Eyes cry while others are cold, lifeless.

He is in the room, with nowhere to go and no reason to care. Sol lies on the floor now but Hector can no longer see her. There are too many directions to take, too many options and he is king of time.

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Rip Van Winkle Syndrome

August 20, 2009 at 12:04 am (Humbly Submitted For Your Approval)
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Today as the Voice offers the morning’s greetings Roberto Ignacio del Fuego listens, not without a sense of irony.

“Today, as we venture forth to our Tasks, We ask that you remember this: We are but etchings against the wall, the radioactive etchings against the walls of this new Nagasaki.  This meaning, of course, that you are only memories and will always be memories.  There is nothing here that will last more than a day and that is not to be forgotten.”

Roberto listens and the smirk on his face is noted by none of the other Tests that walk the street and he does not expect them to; tomorrow they will all be gone.

——-

He had been born at the beginning of it all, when the fire had rained over the city and the first bomb roughly kissed the flesh of Gaia.  See, it was in this moment that he had been born, and on this day that the Revelation was made: that here on Her surface there was nothing that could be pure, that could be real.  Winds raged over the city, consuming the edifices that had been the pride and joy of humanity and melting the flesh off the bones of those who dwelled within them.

Roberto had been different, when the fires had taken his mother he had been sleeping within her womb, unconcerned with the rest of the world and the problems that obviously confronted it.  She had exploded (being so close to the epicenter of a 4 ton package of Uranium tends to do that to even the best of us) but he, he had not.  See, it went like this: when the bomb tore his mother asunder the bomb, on a whim, caught Roberto and lifted him from the wreckage of what would have been his home.

Crying his first cries all the way up, Roberto was carried upwards towards the heavens as if he had been so perfect that he would not even have to go through the test of living; he was already worthy of Paradise.  But then the winds stopped and they held him above the wreckage of the city and those who had survived the blast picked themselves and saw him floating high above them.  It was this vision of something that appeared to be so messianic that sculpted the new world, this, to use words that have already been taken, this new Nagasaki.

And when Roberto began his descent to the city, he was met by hordes of people all who wished to touch him but they would never receive a chance because an instant later the suits came.  And they barreled through the crowd and scooped baby Ignacio with their gloved hands and raised their guns to the sky, announcing their victory, for  now the babe was theirs.  Roberto had by this point quieted down, despite the noise from the guns, in fact he had not uttered a sound since he had arrived on the planet’s surface, as though someone up above had spoken to him while he had remained suspended.

So it was that Roberto came into the possession of the government, what was left of it after the bombs and the war, and he was not heard from again for years.  But more of that later.

—–

The Voice switched off and the Tubes were allowed on their merry way, to their Tasks.  The city was in tatters still, a hollow shell that was gradually being rebuilt by those who had remained: the Tubes.  They were the tests that had to be enacted in order for humanity to move on, because without a sense of safety they would never be able to progress again as they once had.  See, imagine what that had felt like for the world, watching years and years of forward thinking destroyed in a matter of moments by some metal and unseen atoms that had become just a bit too friendly in their small casing.  The destruction had been devastating but the message even more so: that no matter how hard they worked, none of it survived and none of it would be there tomorrow.  So the Tubes were the test that inevitably fell to the US of A because doesn’t it always fall to us?

The city had been New York.

The damage was outstanding and those skyscrapers that had been allowed to stand after the attack of 9/11 were gone, leveled, nada, kaput because the fact that they had remained standing the first time had been an accident anyway.  The Tubes went out into New York, elephant graveyard of the world, and picked their way through the skeletons of the behemoths, The Chrysler, the Empire State, and tried to rebuild.  They were offered no help from the government, no these were all residents of New York proper, or improper, who had left to their glorious five boroughs to take back what had been once theirs.  Never mind that very few of them were construction workers or engineers and practically none of them had been fit after the bomb to reconstruct; it was their duty.

They had been, however, given clothing, uniforms more like, that they were to wear everyday they went out to work.  They were grey, ashy grey, that gave the city when viewed from above to have the appearance of being covered in a thin cover of burnt refuse.  And everyday that layer grew thinner.

But Roberto Ignacio del Fuego, golden child of the government, was offered a different uniform, white, pure white so pristine that it blinded one to see and so perfect that it could be seen from above no matter where he stood.  So, whenever Roberto went out to help clear the rubble and build back up, he was ignored.  Because despite the fact that he had been a savior when brought down from the sky, the suits had turned him and he was now seen as a Judas.  He never once stopped his work, never looked up at the angry eyes of the people and instead applied his hand in the building of the city.  The sun pressed down on his shoulders but he never once asked for water, never once asked for help from the other Tubes, guilt propelled his actions.

—–

Growing up had not been a joyful process for Roberto.  The government had offered him needles and serums and enzymes which they hoped would draw out the answers to their questions.

Why you, you creepy son of a bitch?  What had allowed you to live when the rest of the city had died or at least been scarred irrevocably?

The boy had been protected by the bomb itself and he had come down to the wreckage without even a scratch.  There was an answer.  So they stuck him full of needles and shocked him with their therapies that were supposed to draw out the answers they could not find.  They wanted him to tell them why he never cried and why even when they subjected him to the most painful of questions he never even whimpered.  He only watched them with glassy eyes and remained quiet as if when he had been held up before the sun and away from the destruction, he had been told something they were never to know.

This holier than though nonsense only helped to fuel their fervor even more and their tests became even more intense, punctuated by beatings which solved nothing but the rage that his captors felt.  He never interacted with the suits or even the nurses who they sent in to try to convince him that they were the good guys.  He never trusted them, could feel that they were not like him and that they had never known what it felt like to be permanent, above erasure.  He felt closer with the roaches that scurried across his cell at night and who he knew would never suffer at the hands of time.

Then one day they found it.  There, nestled within the bones that connected his hand to his wrist was the answer.  It was a vein that pumped blood at a steady rate, the tick, tock, tick tock, of a clock and that when they checked for his they realized it had never been there.  The suits began to call him Father Time after the discovery, aware that they had discovered someone who was above time and above the need to count.  For him there was no notion of permanence, no need to mark down the days because Roberto knew that it was all subject to ends.  He had been put above time, above the tick tock tick tock and that put him above them.

The knowledge that he had been born at the exact moment of the explosion sparked something in the minds of the government of our Us of A.  There had always been Robertos.  The stories of Rip Van Winkle, those of us who could step upward and beyond and ignore the effects of age, ripped from the streams of time by forces such as the collision of a few choice atoms.  And within their minds twisted thoughts began to brew, of entire groups of people who could avoid the processes of radiation and death and who would make our glorious Red White and Blue stronger than any other nation.  They sent him back to the city.

—-

Today when looking down on the city, one noticed a few other people in the pure white of those exempt.  There stories were all different (birth by lightning bolt, car crash, fire) but one thing was the same: the fact that their innocence had allowed them to ignore the destruction, to be above the erasure.  These figures graced in pure white were graced with some things that the others weren’t: women or men who were to be their partners.  And after they had taken to their business and the children were almost ready to be born, it began again.

Fire rained down upon the city and Roberto and those also clad in pure white were ignored by the destruction of the bomb.  Those Tubes who were not above Time became ash, engraved memories on the walls.  But a handful, those blessed with child found that their children were carried above the destruction by gentle winds until the fires had quieted down.  Twisted, raging fires plastered the hard work of the Tubes to the ground.  But the government watched over this, their hard lesson in impermanence with gleaming eyes.

We, humanity that had tried so hard to find our escape from death had finally found it.  It would take years to perfect, but being ignorant of the horror was the first step towards the answer.  Those children born into the fire would never know that they had escaped the fire and that was what made them so perfect.

Roberto Ignacio, who had tried for so many years to help rebuild the city that he had never known looked up at the fires that rained down upon him.  He was tired of trying, tired of watching his home burn.  And so he did what none of the suits had ever been able to do.  He recognized Time as they had never been able to and released his power over it.  If they would not allow him to help in building something that would last forever then would he would give in and end it.   And Time, the real Father of all, having watched for so long took back his power and laughed in the face of the suits.  There was no escape from death. The fire caught and spread.

And so Roberto Ignacio del Fuego burned and gave Gaia back to time.

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Pueblo Bonita

April 9, 2009 at 11:20 pm (Humbly Submitted For Your Approval)
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I saw a dead bird today on the sidewalk.

It was wrapped up tight like a Christmas present from a parent who had forgotten to poke the holes in the box, its ruffled feathers shifting gently with the breeze.  The eyes were shut tight as though it were asleep but if this were sleep then it was no sleep I ever wanted to partake in–they were clenched as though it never wished to open them again, the horrors all too real.  I stared at it for a few moments longer and then continued down the street towards the skyline.

It is a new spring but none of the sounds that accompany spring are here this year.  A month or so before there had been people rushing out with leaf blowers and brooms to clear out the last of winter’s pelt; the wolf was gone and with it the hopelessness of a year full of horrible news.  At least that was what we had hoped.  The clouds had hung heavy for the past month and the sun that had come out for a brief cameo had quit, given up on the industry and allowed his less than friendly colleagues to take over.  The hail had hit that same week with winds that tore small trees from their roots and knocked wires down so that we were left without our communications.  And throughout it, a president, calm and composed, bidding us to calm down and not to worry because when he was done with the weather it wouldn’t know what hit it.

But Gaia only laughed, her laughter throwing cars onto sidewalks and people into streets.  It probably isn’t the brightest move for me to be out and about but the confines of my home had become too much for my claustrophobic self and so I took to the streets.  The weather had calmed down now, the Earth was exhausted I suppose.  Gaia is like a smoker trying to run the marathon and and run it she will but the breaks in between were lengthy, we had destroyed her lungs with our cigarettes that we had plunged into her skin.  So today is cloudy and a little wet but there is no wind, gracias a dios, and the rain is gentle perspiration.

New York is eery these days.  There are multiple empty stores on both sides of the street, all sporting for sale signs some with an added Immediately in bold letters.  Property is being lost and sold all over the city and no one is coming in to buy it anymore.  So those of us still loyal to our city wait with bated breath for a bailout, a helping hand from the Great Father who every day smiles on television and says wait.  The people on the streets walk with raincoat collars up and hands in their pockets, their eyes perusing the sidewalk for spare change and salvation.  Even when money has failed us we seek it out on every street corner and every crack in the sidewalk.  But it isn’t there and I look forward toward the end of Manhattan Isle which from 181 St is quite a way off.

I stop in at a diner to buy myself a coffee and stock up before beginning my journey south.  The place is practically empty except for a man in the corner who is nursing a coffee and his mind which lies splattered on the table.  Every so often it twitches and winks at me and I smile back politely and try not to make eye contact.  I settle down at the counter and greet the owner who looks to be a failed investor, his Wall St. credentials glued to his forehead in the form of stocks and bonds that are now worth nothing.  I ask him for a coffee to which he nods and places a cup in front of me.  The coffee is a tad stale but what isn’t these days and I drink it down quietly, ignoring the man behind me who appears to be reprimanding his mind for being a little too loose with its love.

“So you migrating too?”

I look up at the owner who doesn’t actually appear to care what I’m doing but is only asking because it is programmed into him.  ”I don’t really know.  I grew up here.  I can’t just up and leave.  My family is here too; though they keep talking about leaving too.”   He’s not listening anymore.  He’s trying to reach the slips on his forehead but is going about it the wrong way–reaching over his back and between his legs but never getting close.  What the hell is wrong with these brokers anyway?

“What about you?  Everything north of 14th St is virtually abandoned anyway.  What are you doing up here?”

He shrugs, an uncomfortable motion to watch, his arm bends backward when his shoulder lifts and his head twitches erratically to the right.  ”Someone needs to serve you people.  Obama knows I didn’t serve you people well enough when I was down serving as a watchman on the wall.  So now I serve you all food for free.  Not that free really means anything anymore.”

He attempts again to get the stocks off his forehead, putting his foot up on the counter and pressing his head against his shoe to attempt scraping it off–a remarkably flexible stockbroker.  The papers tear a little but remains on his forehead and he gives up, pouring me another cup.  ”The president promises an end to the bad weather soon,” he goes on.  ”Then I’ll return to my post and get a medal for serving so honorably in the trenches.”

I nod sympathetically at him.  ”I’m sure you will and I’m sure he will.  Don’t worry.  It’s just storm season.  It all comes to pass eventually.”  I turn and nod to the man and his mind who both offer me a tip of their hats and a good day.  I get up and leave him a tip which he hands back to me.  Money doesn’t matter anymore.

Back on the street it is cold and snow rains down upon the city.  It looks more like ash, a haze of ash that settles down, gray upon the ground and rustles when I walk upon it.  There are even less people now but they all walk south towards the end of the Isle, their eyes on the ground.  There are few apartments left on the streets, Gaia has made sure of that, and those that are left are boarded up or occupied by the Faithful.  They look out from the cavernous depths of the buildings with gleaming eyes that glow green.  I ignore them.  Let them keep waiting.  I’m done waiting.

Someone sidles up beside me and links arms with me companionably.  I laugh aloud, the sound muffled by the snow and bid him hello.  He nods at me from behind his collar.  There  is something altogether soothing about his presence and I walk with him for nearly a block before he says anything.  ”The smell on the street is pleasant today, is it not?”  His voice is smooth.  So smooth that I find myself drifting but I force myself to pay attention.  ”It smells of foolish hope.  There is a hint of impatience on the air but overall its not all that bad is it?  A nice scent to walk to if I do say so myself.”

I find myself nodding without really knowing what he’s saying.  I turn to better see his face but his cowl is high and I can’t see anything but the shadow over his face.  His voice seeps out again and I forget what I’m looking for.  ”We’re supposed to have a comeback soon.  What, with all the hot air they’re blowing all over the planet to clear away the clouds, we’re sure to have a comeback.  When we do I’ll be the first one on the steps of the Wall waiting for my medal.  And let me tell you they always give the highest in command medals.”

He turns to me and winks and I stumble.  The dollar sign engraved on his forehead is festering but he doesn’t seem to feel it.  The snow is falling heavily now and the streets are  blanketed.  I can’t see more then a few feet beyond my face and the buildings are lost to me.  All I know is that we’re somewhere around 125th because of the heavy slope of the street.  He looks forward again and I lose sight of his face.  The soothing voice flows forward again and my fears are assuaged.  ”You must come out when they hand out medals.  I am sure you will be one of the lucky to be allowed onto the Wall when the cavalry comes rushing forth.   You can be my second in command and we’ll call forth a new era.”

The words sound promising but the dollar sign keeps flashing through my mind.  I begin to extract my arm from his slowly so as not to make a fuss but he tightens his grip and turns to me, baring teeth that flash a dirty gold.  ”Come now, it would be unseemly if I were the only one to return to the Wall.”

I trip and my arm wrenches free of his grasp with a sickening twist.  The pain blinds me for a moment but I scramble to my feet and run.  I can hear him breathing on my neck but soon the breathing stops and all I can hear are his cries, “They will damn you for turning your back!”  I never look back and soon not even his calls are audible.

I don’t stop running for some time.  The snow is so heavy now that I can see nothing, hear nothing, smell nothing–a virtual vacuum.  My chest heaves but I can’t stop because somewhere in here with me is the radioactive dollar looking for me.  I panic, something I am not prone to do, stumbling, crawling over the snow.  What feels like hours could have been minutes or vice versa and I choke on the snow which tastes more like refuse.

After an interminable time I burst forth from the haze as though through a wall.  The snow clings to my body and I strike it from my person.  I spin around and face the cloud, tripping onto my back.  For moments my heart races and I wait with dread for him to burst forth but he does not.  So with tremendous effort I still my heart and get up, brushing myself off.  Stupid.   Calmate idiota.

I look around, trying to regain my bearings.  The buildings are old, not just New York City old but Stuyvesant old.  They are crumbling under the weight of the last Faithful who have all moved down here near the Wall to wait.  I know where I am.

This is the Financial District.  The End of the Isle.

Behind me the cloud hangs heavy, consuming the corpse of Gotham silently and completely as Gaia is prone to do.  Back to the good earth.  Pieces of edifices fall to the ground around me so that as I walk I am forced to dodge falling brick.  There is no one in the street here, everyone is inside.  The city watches as the cloud expands, moving out.  I keep moving.  I will not return to that.  I turn a corner and stop.

Above me looms a massive wall reminiscent of Hadrian’s failed barricade.  Even this looks worn and the cracks are filled with money and discarded articles of clothing and items of pleasure–it is all they are good for now.  At the base of the wall is a horde a men.  They are armed with muskets, harpoons, and spear throwers and they face the wall purposefully.  One man, wearing the hat of a Napoleonic general approaches me with a harpoon and I brace myself to run.  He raises his hands and approaches slowly.

“Peace.  I’m not here to fight you.  Take this.”  He hands me the harpoon.  ”It should be here soon.”

“What should?”  He doesn’t hear or he doesn’t answer and turns around to join the group.  I follow him warily and consider leaving but when I look behind me I see the cloud looming.  Forward.  I join the group and wait.

The moments hang again and the cloud looms and then the Wall shudders.  Another impact shakes the Wall and one man at the front screams the obvious, “It’s coming!”  Despite the redundancy, the men should it back over the ranks and they raise their weapons as another collision rips more cracks through the Wall.  Money rains from the older repaired spots and some of the men grab at what lands in their hands.  I turn around again to see the cloud only ten blocks away and before I can turn back the Wall explodes.  The blast throws me backwards and my head strikes against a wall.  The world is reduced to black.

When I come to there are screams and the bellows of an animal.  The cloud to my right is now five blocks away.  Not that long. To my left is where the screams and horrible roars are coming from.  A massive bronze bull stands in the middle of the militia, nostrils flaring and head shifting back and forth aggressively.  His eyes are bloodshot and his horns gleam despite the lack of sun.  It utters a bellow of challenge.  One man rushes forward and slams his spear into the bull’s flank.  He is immediately gored by the enraged bull which roars its pained defiance.  The bull bleeds money profusely but does not fall just yet.  He rears his head and bellows, the screaming assailant hanging from his horn.  Two more men hit the bull hard in his side and move to get out of its range.  One man escapes but the other takes a hoof to the face.  His skull crumples under the blow and he falls to the floor.  My heart surges and I again glance to the right.  Three blocks to go.

Fuck this.

I dash forward and stab my spear blindly into the bull’s throat.  Money spurts into my face and I dive backwards blindly.  The bull bellows and by the time I can see, he is on his knees.  The men are now hitting him with everything they’ve got.  When he finally stops twitching and moaning the cloud is only a block away.  The men fall to the ground and grab the money, the blood of the bull.  ”You’re not serious, ” I scream as the buildings empty out, the Faithful finally return to the streets.  ”It doesn’t mean anything anymore!  You need to move!”

But they hear nothing and cloud is on us.  Never again.  I burst through the hole in the Wall and run as their cries are muffled by Gaia’s quilt.

Beyond the wall is nothing.  The ocean is gone, dried by Progress and the Earth Mother’s ire.  Vast valleys lie before me as does a gate which lies open to all migrants–to me.  I walk through it and speakers whisper quietly to me, “Help is on the way.”  The voice of the of the Great Father promises.  I look past the gate to the vast wasteland before me.

“We can get through this.”

“Yes we can…” I whisper into the waste.

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Courtship Rituals At The End Of Time

April 1, 2009 at 4:54 am (Humbly Submitted For Your Approval)
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time“So what happened last night?”

Such a loaded question hadn’t been aimed at Tenoch in some time.  Did she mean why hadn’t he been able to get it up?  Or perhaps why hadn’t he smiled the entire time they were together?  Or maybe it was why had she woken up to him curled up into a ball, crying?

The thing was, he didn’t have any answers and even if he did, he wasn’t willing to start talking about his personal life in the middle of SoHo on Broadway and Prince during the busiest time of the day.

“Nothing.  Just a bit of stress getting to me.  Don’t worry about it.”

He can hear the doubt on the other end of the call, there was no need for her to voice it.  The inevitable shrug and resigned sigh soon followed but none of these things really dragged any feelings from him.

“Hey, sorry I’m out right now.  Can I call you later?”

Please do, she says.  He hangs up and offers a swift glance around to make sure no one had been listening to him.

Of course he was never going to call her back–he never did.  Last night had been a particularly pleasant evening and he found a spring in his step.  It was one of the first times in what felt like years that he had not found himself regretting sleeping with someone.  She had been a sweet enough girl–brunette, brown eyes, and the curves of a hispana without all the hang-ups that came with hispanic women.  She had not stood out to him at the party but they had found each other as people were wont to do when inebriated and young and the night had become a prolonged set of animal grunts and groans that ended with her waking up to an empty bedside and a phone number on the pillow.

And there it was.  He had given her his phone number because at the moment he had wanted her to call because the sweet release she invoked from his loins had sold him on love and her.  But as he left her place, his tie loose and hanging from his mussed shirt, the euphoric feelings that had only hours before enveloped him soured and the unique puzzle that they had solved became less so.  They were now squealing pigs, grunting and writhing in their troughs until finally at the climax of it all they sank, exhausted into the mud.  And so when she does call him and asks him about the night he is already done with her, is on the step of forgetting about her and not letting his failure devour him.

He walks along Prince Street now, perusing the street vendors wares and saying hello to some of the vendors who happen to recognize him.  One of the women vendors smiles at him and he smiles at her but does not walk over to her and that clears the smile from her face swiftly.  He had been with her at some point in the past and he supposes she wanted him to talk to her but that was too much reminder and he was not looking for that.  So he turns right on Wooster St and ducked into the Adidas Store.

It was not that he didn’t like women.  No, see that was the problem.  He loves all women with all of their perfection but especially for their little imperfections.  He wants to be at all their sides and simultaneously at none of them and he knew that this was akin to being a womanizer but it was not his intention.  He just wants to know what all of them taste like, feel like, shout like.  Perhaps then, when he has finally known them, will he finally be able to find the peace he needed.

The Adidas Store is blanketed in neon greens, oranges, and yellows and young store clerks lazed around looking as though they would more likely judge you than help you.  He looks through their track jackets, an old habit of his, for his nation’s colors though he knew they would never have them.  He is a child of mixed blood and most of the blood was too indigenous for their ever to be a track jacket dedicated to it.  Still, sometimes he likes to hope.

He ventures back onto Prince St, raising the collar of his jacket and pretending to run through his text messages in order to avoid the eyes of the woman vendor.  When sufficiently far enough from the vendor he puts his phone away again and looks around.  Prince St. was more crowded than normal and the mob was saturated by Europeans and Asians all in a rush to milk our stores for all they were worth with the dollar being so weak.  They were the plague of locusts sent down upon Egypt to make them pay for their hubris and as with Egypt our crops were abundant–we simply had no one to purchase the grain anymore.

Tenoch knew that he loved women too much to ever give them up.  He had tried but always found himself coming back.  Every time he met one at a party he went home with them and time would slow.  In any movie this would be perfect, romantic and sensual but Tenoch found that time never returned to its normal pace.  He was lost in time and everyone around him was still on normal time.  And every new woman left him feeling a bit more displaced.  He wishes he could figure out how to return but the molasses only grew thicker each time.

Tenoch stops in a deli on a corner that happened to make one of the best BLTs in the city but that he preferred to keep secret; no point in ruining a good thing.  He took the sandwich over to a nearby playground and sat down to eat, ignoring the chastening looks of wary parents.  Taking a bite he smiles.  Delicious. In the middle of a bite his leg begins to vibrate, he curses, and immediately blushes as he hears the children around him Oooo mommy! He struggles to get his phone out of his too tight pocket and when he does finds that the person has given up calling.

“God damn it!”

This time he ignores the howls from the children and rises from the bench stoically.  He checks his missed call list and dials the last missed number which reads Dan.  It rings one, two, three times and he is about to hang up when he hears the distinct sound of someone picking up.

“Hello..?”

“Yo.”

There’s a snicker on the other end.  ”Hey Tenoch.  How ya doin man?”

“Good, good.  Yourself?”  Tenoch weaves in and out of the crowds on 6th Avenue expertly, paying little attention to them.  A few people look at him askance, he always speaks a little too loudly when on the phone and some people, normally tourists, jump when they hear him behind them.

“I’m not too bad.  Just chilling in the Village.  You know how it is.  It can get boring sometimes, even here in the city.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”  You could tell he didn’t.  ”But look we’re throwing a party at the gallery today if you want to come by.  We haven’t seen you in too long.”

Tenoch pretends to think for a moment.  He has no plans for the night but sometimes he likes to pretend that he does.

“Yeah, I mean I can be there, mos’ def’.  Not much going on tonight.  Who else is gonna be there?”

“Just about everyone.  Its gonna be kind of like a reunion.  I mean its gonna be crazy.  It’ll be like old times.”

Tenoch bumps into a man who turns around as if expecting an apology.  ”Ok so I’ll definitely be there.  I’ll drop by at ten or so.”  Tenoch turns to glance over shoulder and throws the man a stare that has him walking two times faster than he was when crossing the street.  Tenoch smiles and continues down 6th.

“Alright man see you then.”

“Peace.”

He hangs up the phone and turns on Christopher St.  Descending the stairs into the 1 train station Tenoch turns on his ipod and loses himself in the music his entire ride home.

After a brief trip home, he finds himself back on the one and descending into the depths of Manhattan.  The train has its nocturnal baggage now and it speeds swiftly through the tunnels dispatching the troops throughout the city on their various missions.  They are a murder of crows hovering over the city, prepared to pick its bones dry for every last scrap they could find.  Their generation could not hope to be anything more than scavengers.

He dozes a bit in the corner of the train, his collar up around his face.  He never worries about missing his stop because any native New Yorker knows that they will feel the rhythm of the train and know when to get off.  So when it finally arrives at 18th Street he opens his eyes as though Bram Stoker’s Dracula and exits the train to join the hunt.

The gallery is not some bohemian name for a club but actually a gallery owned by the parents of one of his friends and also their home.  His parents had always allowed him to use the place for parties and tonight would be no different.  They would be out and about and they would consume the night in their own way.

From the outside it doesn’t even look like a gallery but more like an old taxi garage and perhaps that was what it had been in its past life but now it was their den and everyone knows that your past lives don’t matter once they are gone.  Pressing the buzzer on the door, he waits for his friend Luc to come down and open the door.  Moments pass and Tenoch moves to press the button again and the door opens as he presses the button again.

“Ah!  Sorry…I wasn’t sure if you were coming down or not.”

“Whatever it’s cool man.”  Luc shrugs and embraces Tenoch.  ”It’s been forever, man. How are you?  Wait, come in.  We can talk once we’re inside.”   Luc ushers Tenoch inside and shuts the heavy door behind him.  He starts to walk upstairs ahead of Tenoch and speaks over his shoulder.  ”So how long are you back?  I hear you’ve been traveling constantly.”

“Yeah, it’s been pretty sweet.  I just got back from Japan a month ago and that was crazy.”  Music streams down from upstairs and  Tenoch can already feel the bass strumming his body like a string.

“That’s insane, man.  Look we’ll talk more later on but right now there is no way I’m gonna be able to hear you up there so yeah…Let’s do this!”

Tenoch laughs and words his assent.  Luc opens the door and a wall of sound rushes through the stairwell, consuming Tenoch and Luc entirely.

They press on into the gallery and Tenoch hears shouts both male and female of his name and he looks around to see people he had not seen since high school rushing over to embrace him.  But these were no longer his friends but doppelgänger’s who look almost exactly like his friends but are always slightly different.  One of his male friends was a bit broader, a female friend had become just a bit prettier, and he found that this was not what he remembered and that he, unchanged by time did not fall into place as he thought he would.  The trips to other places had removed him from the time stream and now that he had finally returned he found that everything was different.  He was Rip Van Winkle returned from the war but the war he had been in had not involved guns or artillery but minds that no longer wanted to see as one and revolutions that were not as promised as Marx had once written.

His friends did not notice how their appearances affected Tenoch and their embraces covered him like fairy dust until he felt that maybe if he kept moving around the room he would find himself whole within this new reality that he had been forcefully removed from.  He told his friends he was going to get a drink and that he would be back and presses on into the gallery.

He gives himself a moment to take in the space again, hoping that the more he acknowledges the more he will be able to place himself back within the stream.   It is a large gallery the size of a warehouse and divided into three sections with a living area in the back with Luc and his family lived and slept.  The sheer size of the place throws Tenoch off and he feels that maybe he has not grown to fit the gallery.  The main room is 800 square feet  if not more and the walls tower above him nearly fifty feet tall.  They are off white and bare of anything making them all the more imposing.    It seems the gallery is not hosting any shows this month and so there was a sterile air to the surroundings.  But there is nothing sterile about the contents of the room–the writhing, living  wave that was the dance floor, crowded with all of Tenoch’s old friends and some people he assumed were new friends of Luc’s from college.  They yell and sing along to the music that a dj in one corner of the room blasts.  The sound system is massive but still there are enough people for their voices to be heard over the noise.

He steps intrepidly into the sea of people and almost laughs aloud as he is dragged by the current in the direction of the crowd.  He forces himself through the heaving bodies, apologizing to those whose feet he treads on and to couples that he tears apart for precious moments before allowing them to return to their conjoined beings.  He makes it to the kitchen where all the liquor is and finds Brooklyn Lager to his great delight.  He hears a voice behind him say his name tentatively and turns to find a beautiful girl behind him.

“It is you!”  She embraces him and he tries desperately to put  a name on this face that had, as with everyone else, aged and matured.  He concentrates and with an immense effort pulls forth a name.

“Lauren!  Jesus its been forever!”  They embrace and he can’t help but find himself thinking that they somehow feel nice together.  He brushes the thought from his mind and  focuses on Lauren who is talking to him.

“–keep hearing that you’ve been all over the place.  What the hell have you been up to?”

It doesn’t take long for him to put two and two together and he shrugs, “I dunno. Just traveling.  Trying to stay on the move.  I couldn’t stand it here anymore.  Everything felt too small and insignificant and I wanted to feel something you know?  Everything here is ’see and you shall believe’ but I’ve never believed that.  I just wanted to feel…I don’t know.” He flushes and averts his eyes.  ”That made no sense.  First time I see you in nearly two years and I sound like a dumb ass.  Sorry.”

Lauren smiles at him as if she understands and Tenoch can’t help but feel as though maybe she does.  Again he tosses the thought away and focuses on the conversation.  ”–me, I’m trying to stay moving too but its a little different.  I’ve been all over the U.S. now just covering anything and anyone I can.  Journalism is dying and I feel that maybe if I just keep writing I’ll keep it alive.”

Tenoch laughs a little inside, the notion of one person keeping written journalism alive is laughable but he smiles because noble ideals are familiar to him.   “I get that.  For a while I thought maybe I could keep the revolution alive.  You know how I used to be.  I used to wave the hammer in the sickle in everyone’s face like nobody’s business but now that seems to be dying and I can’t keep up with it either.  I guess we all have to grow up sometime.”

“Yeah maybe but I like that you always wanted to do something that made no sense.”  She looks for a moment as though she wants to retract the statement and Tenoch almost spits out his beer as laughter erupts from within him.  ”No I mean, its not that it didn’t make sense.  It just seemed soo…futile…I mean…oh, man…I’m sorry.”

He laughs again and runs his sleeve across his mouth and shakes his head.  ”Don’t be.  It’s true.  I was always a bit retarded when it came to what I wanted to do.  No one’s fault but my own.  Don’t apologize for being honest.”  He looks directly in her eyes for a second and can feel the connection again and looks away.  They stand around awkwardly, Tenoch nursing his beer and Lauren muttering random empty ended phrases as if attempting to start a conversation.

“Do you want to dance?”

The question catches him off guard but he doesn’t show that and says Of course.  He grabs another beer from the fridge to her great amusement and follows her to the dance floor.  She grabs his hand so as not to lose him in the crow and for a moment every stops and he feels time surge forward while the scene remains the same.  So this is  what time traveling feels like. An instant passes and he is back with her and the music surges above them and breaks upon them like a wave.  She doesn’t feel that much older anymore and the room fits more, doesn’t loom nearly as much as it initially did.

Lauren finds an open spot within the crowd and turns to him.  They begin to dance and this isn’t the dancing that is so typical on modern dance floors; they don’t grind and they don’t in any way shape or form rub against each other but it is apparent that they are moving together.  He can dance.  He’s no Michael Jackson but he can move.  He can find rhythm where there is none and pull his body’s strings like a marionette until he has found the proper speed at which to move and suddenly there is rhythm–something created from nothing.

He watches her move and she wasn’t half bad either.  She had the hips to move and they followed the sound well.  He found his eyes following them and when he looked up at her he saw her eyes on his and he blushed.  She laughs and put her hands on his waist and pulled her closer to him.  There was nothing sexual about their dancing despite all the writhing bodies around them nearly orgasming on the dance floor.  She put her arms around him and let him guide her to the beat of the music.  They became lost in the wave, thrown back in forth, crashing on the wall and then surging back to crash against the other wall.

“Do you want to go sit down for a bit?”

She yells it into his ear and still he barely hears it.  He looks up at her and she looks at him expectantly, expectant of what he isn’t sure, but still he nods.  He guides her out of the sea, avoiding the rip tides that threaten to drag them both back in and finally they make it out to an area where there are couches and people.

Tenoch recognizes a small handful of them and a few others he recognizes after pulling them out of the past and placing them within this new present.  He sits down within the circle of chairs and Lauren places herself in a lounge chair next to him.

“What’s good, Tenoch?” A tall man with a strong jaw and an odd likeness to Clark Kent asks.  His name is Jeremy if memory serves.  ”Dan was looking for you.  He’ll probably be back here later.  You know he hates dancing.”

“Yeah.  Not much.  Just been home for a month or so now and catching up with people, you know.  Its crazy being home.”

“Word.  Japan right?  Tokyo!  Godzilla!”  Jeremy extends his arms and rises from his seat to rampage around the chairs as though Godzilla to everyone’s amusement.  One person in the group yells out, Gozirra! and the group laughs louder.

“Yeah.” Tenoch picks up as the laughter subsides. “I mean Godzilla was crazy but nothing like Mecha Godzilla.  Now there’s someone to shit your pants for.”

The crowd laughs and for a few moments there is silence.  Tenoch hears his name yelled and suddenly a mass lands on top of him and smothers him.  He crouches and then pushes the person off gently, trying to see who it is.

“Dan!”  He gets up and embraces his friend.  Of all the people there it appears that outside of himself Dan had escaped the time stream most.  He did not look much different and he acts about the same.  ”This party is crazy.  Thanks for the invite.”

“Of course man.  I couldn’t pass up seeing you after I heard you’d returned from Japan.  I’ve been traveling a bit myself actually.  I just got back from filming in Costa Rica.  I was working on an independent film down there.  Hopefully it will be well received and you’ll hear about it but for now we’re just waiting.”

Tenoch smiles but suddenly feels a slight tug on his arm and looks down at Lauren who he’d completely forgotten about.  ”Hey, I’m going to get another drink.  Do you want anything?”

“Oh man, sorry I got distracted.  Yeah,” he pauses and thinks, “You know what?  I’m gonna be an old man and just play it safe.  Could you just get me another beer?  Thank you!”

She says its nothing and moves to fight through the crowd towards the kitchen.  Tenoch turns back to Dan who is following Lauren with his eyes.  ”Lauren, huh?  Are you two together?  You two always acted like you were in love but from what I remember nothing ever went down.”

“Yeah, we’re not together.  We were just dancing for a bit.  I bumped into her over at the fridge.” Dan raises an eyebrow.  ”I mean I guess she was looking for me but whatever.  Yeah but whatever.”

Dan laughs.  ”Okay, okay.  So yeah.  I see you’ve been chillin’ over here with the old crew.”  He nods at the people sitting around the lounge and takes Lauren’s seat.  Tenoch returns to his seat but before doing so he looks towards the dance floor to see if Lauren is back but nothing.  She’ll back when she’s back.  Chill out. He settles into the chair and talks to Dan about days gone by. This goes on for some time and Tenoch finds himself drifting in and out of the time frame again until he feels a firm hand on his shoulder.  He looks up and Lauren is handing him his beer.  Thanking her he takes the beer and looks to see if Dan is going to get up but finds that Lauren is already on his lap.

The solid weight presses down upon him and again time around him stops and he feels himself speeding up and sinking into the ground.  The substance is like molasses and he can feel it sucking him down and panic takes him.  It is all too abrupt for him to put up any sort of argument and he is through the ground before he can say anything.  He pops out of the floor and lands again in his chair and the room feels new now.  The molasses is gone and he feels clean.  This all takes a moment and he is back with Lauren on his lap and Dan smirking behind his drink.

Someone across from Tenoch asks him a question and once again he finds himself attempting to place a name.  She is Indian or maybe Bangladeshi.  He knows they get angry when you confuse the two but he can never tell the difference.  Shazli?  Maybe.  ”So why were you over in Japan anyway, Tenoch?”

Tenoch looks at her and questions whether or not he should answer.  Who the hell is she anyway?  Lauren puts her arm around him and the gesture soothes him.  ”I was working with a  syndicalist group.”  One of the group laughs, thinking that Tenoch is joking but those who know him remain silent.  ”Despite the flourishing market in Japan, particularly Tokyo, it really isn’t as great as you think.  The shit’s hitting the fan and people are getting sick of it.  I worked with a group of older men.”

“Older men?”  Shazli again.  ”Shouldn’t you have been working with other students?”

“Students in Tokyo are useless.  They spend all their time on their novelties and completely forget their goals.  We were working to awaken the students and through them hopefully find a way to jump start the businesses.  The CEO’s are all old men who are tired and want to step down but there aren’t any people our age who want to take the position.  So we protested and organized rallies and tried to reignite a new desire for work ethic and motivation but the students ignored us.  Wherever we went we never had an audience and finally I just came home.  It isn’t worth fighting a revolution for people who don’t care.”

There is silence for a bit and Tenoch can feel Lauren’s heart beating against his.

“What you should have done was called up Gozirra and had him tear down Tokyo.  Then there would be such a need for initiative and motivation that everyone would have to work!”  Everyone laughs.  The joke wasn’t funny but the need to laugh was there and that is all that one really needs to make anything funny.

“I’m tired.  Do you wanna go?”

The whisper is barely there and Tenoch is not sure that he hears it properly but when he looks at Lauren she is looking at him expectantly again and still he isn’t sure that he knows what she is expecting but he is beginning to suspect.  He leans over and whispers in her ear that whenever she’s ready he’ll go.  And he can feel her smile and she says that she’s ready to go now and she rises from his lap and he follows slowly.

“Aight, Dan I think we’re out.”

“Oh ya?”  Dan doesn’t hide the smirk this time and Tenoch smiles back.   “Alright man you need to keep in touch.  And stop being crazy.  No one wants you dying in some foreign country.”

“Yeah…I don’t know about all that.  I’ll be fine.”  He embraces Dan and says goodbye to everyone else.

Before they can leave they look for Luc who if nothing else they have to thank for the party.  He is off in a corner of the room on a lone couch with a girl that Tenoch does not recognize.  Tenoch yells out a farewell but knows that in their present state Luc will be incapable of untying his tongue to return the sentiment.  Lauren grabs his hand and leads him out of the party.

They catch a cab and take it to Lauren’s place.  The entire ride is silent with Lauren’s head on Tenoch’s shoulder and Tenoch’s mind racing.  It isn’t that he doesn’t find Lauren attractive.  It’s that he had been with someone the night before.  No, that’s not it either.  He had been with women one, two, three, four nights in a row and each one different.  He didn’t want to throw her away.  He couldn’t.  So when she asked him to come upstairs he considered saying no but paid the driver anyway and went up with her.

It is a beautiful Upper West Side apartment well decorated for someone who was barely out of college.  She offers him a seat on the couch and asks if he wants anything to drink.  He asks if she has any liquor and she does so he asks her for a rum and coke which she runs off to get.  He fidgets on the couch, taps on his lap, hums songs until she returns with the drink.  She sits next to him, nearly on his lap again and they sit here for a moment in suspended animation. This is not one of the occasions mentioned earlier but simple human ineptitude, the inability to take the next step.

“No.”

Lauren looks up at him confused.  He is shaking his head adamantly.

“No.  I can’t do this.  No.”

“You can’t do what?”  She looks concerned but not upset.

“I can’t sleep with you.  I won’t.”

Lauren stares at him for a moment and he expects her to laugh.  He expects her to mock him for even thinking that she would want to sleep with him but instead she nods.  ”I can’t say I didn’t want to.  That would be a lie.  Is there someone else?”

He shakes his head.  ”Nothing like that.  I just.  I want you.  I want to feel what you feel like.  But I want to know you within now and not then.  Up until this moment everyone has been a past moment.”

She smiles at him.  ”I have no idea what you just said.”  Tenoch blushes and stutters a response but she cuts him off.  ”Look, it’s fine.  I don’t have to get it.  I want you too but if this isn’t the place then whatever.  We’ll figure something out.  The thing is I don’t really know what you mean by the past.  I just know that every moment has to be the present.  If we don’t live that way then we turn into Tokyo and I don’t want that.  I don’t live in a place where everything is outdated but we live like a plague on the work of the past.  So you need to stop too.  We’re the present.  And you’re the present.”  She stops as if running that through her head and laughs.  ”I don’t know what the hell I’m saying.  Look can we go to bed?  You can sleep in the same bed with me.  Don’t worry we don’t even have to touch.”

Words fail to form and so she grabs his hand and takes him to her bedroom where she undresses him and lays him to bed.  Never once does she even attempt to kiss him and when she climbs into bed beside him she doesn’t touch him.  Tenoch stares at her as she closes her eyes and he feels it for the final time.  This time he feels himself freeze along with Lauren and the bed but the world around him revolves in a blur until he can no longer distinguish shapes.  He feels nauseous and tries to move to run to the bathroom but finds that he is incapable of moving.  A moment later the revolutions cease and the nausea dissolves.  This time, when he looks around, the room does not appear out of place and he feels as if within time he fits, a perfect piece of a massive jigsaw. He drifts off to sleep, safe in the knowledge that he is where he should be.  When he awakens he is once again like Rip Van Winkle but now he has returned to the time he belongs in and the awakening is on that does not scare him.

The next morning Lauren feels herself awaken to a minor hangover.  She opens her eyes, smiling, excited to see Tenoch but finds nothing.  The other half of the bed is empty and for a moment Lauren is crushed.  Then she sits up and looks on top of the pillow and placed carefully in the center of the pillow is a note with a phone number.

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Exits and Entrances

March 31, 2009 at 4:09 pm (Humbly Submitted For Your Approval)
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I am safe behind the screen and I need no president...Here there are no entrances or exits. And no, they are not the same, not the same at all because they all serve their purpose as we are all meant to serve. No. Apologies. The television is on in front of me. It is the inauguration and I am watching it. The only thing in the room is the television. And me. The room is black as pitch or it would be if it weren’t for the television. It illuminates the shadows in the corners, keeps me in the light, keeps me aware of what is going on around me.

I don’t get up from the chair, nor would you if it were your chair. What is there to do in such a place? I think that once the presence that is my mind asked why I make no attempts at escape. And I thought, for a moment that I had once but now, in the warm glow of the television I find no reason to rise. Have you ever tried to turn your back to it? I did once when I felt the wall for exits, and moments of darkness were terrifying. Do you know what I mean? When the television shifts to another scene or switches to a commercial the screen is black for a moment but that moment, on the outskirts of the rays, is isolating. There is nothing around you for an instant but when the television returns everything returns to normal, the world keeps running like clockwork. Still, the moment is palpable. No. Apologies. One can no more feel a moment taste the colors. Though once I swear I tasted red. Or maybe that was in a movie.

Apologies.

The president elect. All of it outside of the room, all of it far away. And the crowds that appear on the television appear to be overjoyed, emotional to the point of tears but I don’t know what that feels like. I am not so sure that it is worth getting to know what that feels like. I am safer here, I am safer in the refuge of the television. Here all I need to do is watch and listen. The television switches to a commercial and the room vanishes for the interminable moment and my heart races. Light. Breathe. Light.

The room is fifteen square feet and the only thing inside it is the television. And me. Everything except for the television was made by me. The television was always there. It was there upon my birth and it nursed me to health. The chair I thought into being and I am never truly confident that it is there. It holds me up and the moments when I do not acknowledge it there is a hole in the room that leaves me afraid and has my stomach twisting in knots for the rest of the night. So the chair is rarely ever gone. It is simply the television. And me.

The inauguration returns and the commentators speak and speak until silence. Not true silence. The new president speaks. And I hear but from here, from the room, from the chair, what do I care? His actions are irrelevant. The television needs no governing and I with no money to spend need no protection from the inevitable recession, the succession of power that I simply need know nothing about. And the audience is crying again. Should I be crying? I try to cry but I am safe behind the screen and I need no president. I who am we need no television.

There is only the television. And me.

And the exits. No. Apologies. The commentators speak of exit strategies and relief to bereaved people who have been suffering. There are no entrances in the room, nor are there exits. I was borne in the womb of the television for generations. From the year when the man landed on the moon and Kennedy and Nixon both won simultaneously. Because for the world I am the final moment. I am the child weaned upon the milk of the television, upon years of media and wars and peace time. Upon my birth there were other children in this room, a radio, books, sofas, people in and out. But time omits those so-called necessities. So now it is the television.

And you.

No. Apologies.

And me.

For am I am not you.

When you. No. Apologies. When I look in the mirror. No. Apologies. There is no mirror. The president speaks of looking into a mirror to find the person who can truly save the nation. I do not look into any mirror to see you. I do not see me. Because there is no mirror. I only need the television now. Those which were the necessities of life are all fed to me, intravenously, through the television, through a tube that is placed precisely on the inside of my eye to feed me what I need to know. The needle is never removed and when it is only because I chose it to be so.

And with the end of the speech there is the benediction and the president and his cabinet exits. And I don’t know where they go. How could I know where they go? Here there are no entrances and no exits.

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The Roots of Our Salvation

March 4, 2009 at 4:55 pm (Musings)

This entry was inspired by a recent comment on my first post.  The commenter politely stated that in their opinion Magical Realism, a recurring topic throughout the mentioned post, was not truly a Latin American thing but had its roots in a tradition that stemmed to Europe and Spain.  I wholeheartedly agree and recognize that there were those from many other nations especially  in Germany with writers such as Kafka and Johan Daisne.  I was not attempting to discredit them but simply draw the Latin American magical realists away from their European predecessors.

There is something entirely unique about the Latin American movement in magical realism and, not to reiterate something that was expressed in the earlier post, it is the nearly unifying attempt to protect oneself from vulnerability and the pains that exist so often as a man and as a citizen of Latin America.  It is not that other people do not suffer as well but they handle it differently as can be viewed in Kafka’s “Wedding Preparations in the Country”.  Kafka acknowledges the insecurities of his characters and plays with them, placing them in the spotlight no matter how fervently they attempt to hide from them.  The magical realists of Latin America also tend to acknowledge their character’s insecurities and pain but that is as far as the similarity goes.  In Bolaño The Savage Detectives, the two true protagonists Arturo Belano and Ulises Lima are never allowed to tell their stories for themselves, never show any sort of emotion to anyone and when emotion is apparent it is only seen from the narrator’s shadowy perspective, be it from an entirely different room or in such a dark room that no real emotion is ever really witnessed.

It is for this reason that I separated the world of European magical realism from that of the Latin Americans.  There is a feeling of escape within their stories, a need to run from the pain of their world in order to remain sane and sometimes as in the case of Bolaño it is truly difficult to say that he was able to retain this sanity.  It was also their safest bet when attempting to describe a too dangerous world.  Some of the magical realists carry a journalistic air about their writings and it could never have been safe for them to describe the events they do if they had been blunt and transparent in their commentary.  In Latin America, magical realism offers the safety necessary for artists to be able to assert their political views without the repercussions that a man such as Victor Jara, a popular musician around the time of the Pinochet coup, faced.

So as is obvious, this is why I separated Latin American magical realism from that of other movements.  This is not an attack at the commenter but simply my explanation for something that obviously did not come across clearly in my previous post.  I hope that this better explains my thoughts.

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Shame Or Patroclus’ Descent into Hades

February 27, 2009 at 11:18 pm (Humbly Submitted For Your Approval)
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Sing, O Muse

Sing, O Muse...

Sing, O Muse, of the shame of Tenoch, son of Ivan, whose time (now irretrievable) had been spent in foolish second guesses and what-ifs that had eventually led to him as he was today: frustrated and land locked. And sing, false Muse, of the opportunities, all gone now, that Tenoch, in his shame, felt himself unworthy of taking. How could he deserve such privilege? Sing of his failure to launch, cruel Muse, the countless moments where mission control had reached “2…1” but he failed to ignite the fuel. Moreover, sing for me of how in this, the twilight of his youth, he found himself on his computer scanning through his junk mail. Sing then, my muse, but once more, of how this last chance flared before him as in a beacon, warning him to take heed, pay attention.

“Holy fuck.”

He was normally more eloquent than this but the words on his screen had silenced his mind. Congratulations! You have been accepted into our program in Bhutan. His mind remained submerged, struggling to find air until finally with one last pull, he broke through. He lay back in his chair, his chest heaving, his arms splayed out for balance.

He had applied to this one as he had applied to every other, with little hope of getting in. He prepared to compose a response telling them that they had sent an e-mail to the wrong place; there was no way the email was meant for him. As his thoughts settled, he reread the letter and found no mistakes in address or name. The invitation was for him.

Further perusing the letter he begins to laugh hysterically, his shoulders heaving and his head down. Minutes pass and tears begin to land on his lap. “8000 dollars.” It was not that he couldn’t ask his parents to help him pay for it; it was that he did not find that his life merited such a reward. The undeniable burden of his shame lay upon his shoulders leading him to question his every thought and feeling. It was fitting that he would be offered salvation only to find the broker was Shaitan. The shame, the thoughts of a string of attempted failures, debilitates him and leaves him crippled. He falls asleep in his chair, unable to rise from his seat.

He wakes to his dog licking his fingers in an attempt to rouse him from his coma, a sleep that had left him out from the world all day. “Morning Achilles” he says, reaching behind the ears of his golden retriever. Like clockwork his leg begins thumping and Tenoch smiles and rises from his chair, finally able to muster the will.

Plugging his iPod into his speakers, he steps into his shower. The gentle tattoo of the water is gently overcome by the gentle swell of Pyramid Song. Thom Yorke’s ghostly coo reverberates throughout the bathroom and Tenoch finds himself wailing his fury along with York as the drums contribute their swinging cadence. He massages his scalp and thinks, thinks of the day’s potential but can find none here, not with the music fading out and following into the much angrier Pulk. He steps out of the shower—

–and into a café. Ordering a double shot of espresso he settles down at a table and begins to write. The words sprout from his shame, gargled remnants from the back of his mind that had not been shaken loose this morning. It was summer and Tenoch preferred the café at this time, clear of the NYU students who frequented it during the academic year to flaunt their so called intellect. It was uninspired as was most of what he wrote. He did not find that he deserved the privilege of comprehending the madness that all great writers suffered. He looked up from his writings for a moment and found that at an older white man at a nearby table was staring pointedly at him, something he could not stand. Tenoch was the child of a nearly Haitian Dominican mother and a near pure indio Columbian, so he suffered from an inability to see himself as fully anything (even his roots weren’t pure!). He held the white man’s gaze until he looked away, a victory he found profoundly satisfying; it made him feel more like the activists of his past standing up for his people.

As the espresso begins to settle in he finds his writing becoming more erratic and the lights become uncomfortably bright. He stares at the lights, they captivate him and then—

–he is fucking her but she isn’t his and he isn’t hers. Her gasps grate against his ears until he just wants it to end; he wants to cum and be out of tHERe. And then he does and she screams and he—

–orders another espresso. He needs it. The trip wants him to pay attention to it, to say “I will go!” But he can’t. Not yet, not now, not yet, not now, not yet. And his pen is cleaving the paper’s flesh and the manager is demanding he leave, that he is scaring the customers and Tenoch smiles “Wonderful espresso” and leaves.

New York City is lonely in summer. It is dark even in broad daylight and there are too many people around for him to feel a part of anything. And he knows that he should decide on whether to go or not but he can’t. He walks and—

–steps into a bakery in Inwood on Dyckman St. “Dame un sandwich de jamon y queso. De swiss por favor.” And the words are slow to come, he is not Hispanic anymore, he is Latino, or maybe it is the other way around. The Dominican woman at the counter smiles at him and gets to making the sandwich. Tenoch thinks on this half of himself, on the Dominicans. They were the late migrants, only really gracing America’s shores in the past 30 years but there was something significant about them. They were black; black enough to count in this new black regime, they were black—

–she was white. She clung to him, her sweaty body heaving after the desperate act they had commited. He wanted her to let go. He didn’t want her anymore and this was almost as bad as the fucking, the dirty, needless thrusting and searching. He wanted to sear his skin, to have someone skin him and place him on their wall. But he couldn’t die so long as she held him. And she looked at him and opened her mouth “I—“

–“hate you.” He took it. He needed it. She, darker, creamier, slams each word into his face like a fist and he took it standing. He needed to. He loved her and he needed to. He knew what she needed and would give this to give it to her. “You want to go to Bhutan. So go. Fuck this, Tenoch.” He smiled. “I—“

–“love you.” He cringed. Those words stung, left his ears bleeding. No you don’t, no, no, no, don’t, you. It was just a dick. Fuck, it was just a fuck. Her claws dug into him and he couldn’t leave. “Do you—“

–“I got in mama!” His mother sounded tired, old on the phone. “I don’t think I can afford it though.” She spoke and he could hear the aging, couldn’t piece apart the words. He nodded. “So I’ll go. I—“

–“love me too?” Tick, tick, love, tick, me, tick, do. Yes, no, yes, your eyes, gods, no, yes, gods! He kisses her; he fucks her, anything to shut her up. Her moans go on and on, oh god, on me, on her—

–and on the boat. Bhutan waits. Weeks from now it will wait for me with legs wide open. And I go in or he goes in and we don’t know that I don’t know. And I

love

you

too.

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I, Who Am Not What I Appear To Be

February 27, 2009 at 2:09 am (Musings)

I was reading an article in the New Yorker a few weeks back on John Updike.  He passed away the week before and needless to say that week’s issue was full of articles from editors and others who wanted to make their peace with Updike and his legacy.  I regrettably know very little about the man and his works and took advantage of the surge of attention to learn a little bit about this writer who had been held in such high esteem.  I will not spend any time summarizing the article because that is not the point of me relating this story but there was a recurring theme throughout the entirety of the piece that had me thinking by the end.  The writer proclaimed that Updike was one of the few writers to ever be able to fully express himself.  I remember reading this particular part of the story and stopping to reflect on whether I was even close to  being able to fully express myself.  I came to the conclusion that I was not and probably would never be.

It came to my attention recently and very late that magical realism, my favorite form of fictional writing, was a form that had initially been almost uniquely Latin American.  I found this to be pleasing on some deeper level because I found it to be but another testament to my innate connection to Latin America, to a place I have barely been a part of but nevertheless want to be more than anything else.   I mentioned magical realism and my adoration for it because initially, upon reading the article, I found that I was disappointed with my acknowledgment  that I was always to be incapable of expressing myself.

Having thought on the subject for some time now I have come to the conclusion that the magical realists were also faced with this problem.  It is a uniquely Latin American problem and even more so a problem faced by men of Latino descent.  We are raised by our fathers in the tradition that we are to never express ourselves more than is necessary and we are taught that it is never necessary.  During high school, as a result of having many female friends, I convinced myself that I was in tune with my emotions, a man truly in touch with his femininity and not ashamed of it.  Now I’ve come to realize that while in touch with my emotions I am incapable of expressing them.  I think it is for this reason that I have always found myself in love with writing and especially writing about things that do not reflect when held to the mirror.  I don’t want to read my works and feel that I see myself in them though it is of course inescapable and to this day I see myself in everything I write.

For this reason people, Latinos especially, resort to magical realism; we want to find a means of escape and perhaps to distort the mirror as Alice did when she stepped through.  It feels safer to step through the mirror and find that there is a world that resembles ours but where we can still eat a mushroom and grow to be 100 ft tall.  To step to the mirror and find that it is solid and that we are the only real thing there is too terrifying a prospect to think on and magical realism offers that escape.

So no, I cannot and will never express myself fully.  I do not believe that limits me in my ability to be a successful writer but I think it is only fair that I offer you some sort of warning.  When you read me and can almost swear that the next line was meant to be more important than it really is that is because it probably was supposed to be.  This does not mean that I somehow destroy my writings with my inability to successfully communicate what I feel but that instead I want you to read a little more closely.  I don’t believe in giving anyone too much.  “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”  I firmly believe that.  Maybe it was because my father rarely ever helped me up after I fell and skinned my knee but I don’t think I’ll ever help my child up either.

So when I leave something out maybe it is because I want you to dig deeper and better come to know me because I am unwilling to allow you to know me.  Hopefully after all this you have opened a small window and can now see a little more of the inside even if it is limited.  There will always be things that I leave in shadow but I am trying to open myself if only a little bit.

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