1/14/08
One day, without warning, they opened the door to my cell, my padded solitary confinement. A well-dressed man with perfect hair and a royal blue suit walked in wearing a smile that brimmed with empathetic tenderness.
"Hello Charles. I'm Mike Gallows."
"Hey." It was all I could muster from beneath the drug slumber.
"Let's go for a walk." He extended his hand to me and helped me up.
I trailed along beside him, dragging my feet, as we made our way through some sort of building I don't recall entering. It was old and clinical, like an outdated mental hospital, suddenly transforming into an office building with the turn of a corner.
"This is our main office, for now." With a wave of his hands, cubicles, computers, and clerical staff all seemed to materialize with his words.
As we walked, the business casual clad worker drones all peered out of their private hives to get a peek at this deranged madman the boss was giving the grand tour to. I hated them and their inquisitive eyes.
"We've got a few projects in the works, but, we consider your book a top priority." I swung my head up towards him from my hunched stance. "I don't think you know what your work has meant to some of us here."
"Where am I?" I don't remember sleeping.
"Well, that's sort of one of the tiny problems we're working on. We're not quite sure."
Gallows started walking, and as if on a leash, I lurch forward, shuffling along behind him like an obedient dog. The office interior fades and a shimmering laboratory sparkles in its place.
A young lab technician, hidden behind mousy brown hair and glasses, tinkered with various, unscientific looking tools. Blunt objects, odds and ends from a junk drawer, a handful of rocks. She continued to arrange them in some manner of specific order known only to her, seemingly oblivious to us having entered her arena.
"Now, we're going to need you to hop up on here and let us have a look at you." Gallows guided me to some sort of medical surplus lounge chair and shoved me down into it.
He rotated around me, appearing in doctor's scrubs when he re-entered my line of sight. I began to feel a soothing comfort trickle down my body. Numb nothingness filled the everywhere of ache and pain. My teeth went first, then my chest, my limbs.
"Just sit back and relax and we'll see what's going on here." Gallows activated some out of sight lever, coercing the dental lay-z-boy to draw me deeper and deeper into comfortable oblivion.
I felt electromagnetic pulses, radioactive tracers, psychic emanators, all probing my body looking for disease. Seeking answers. Locating my soul.
When eternity had just started to become a teensy bit tiresome, the procedure ended. A bright light still shone on my exposed aura. I was vibrating, tingling pins and needles as physical sensation began to awaken within me.
"Well, everything seems to be in good working order, and I believe we can help you with the last piece you're missing." Gallows began to raise my chair up to an upright position.
Sitting across from me, he appeared to be relieved. "Looks like you came through relatively unscathed, considering your story."
Gallows snapped off his latex gloves and jotted down some notes in a folder before handing them off to the assistant. A pure, silvery mirror was wheeling itself into the room, gliding on invisible mono-filaments no doubt.
The mirror came to a stop just a few feet away. As Gallows readjusted it directly before me, I glanced over at the young lab assistant who was cleaning away the bric-a-brac that was strewn across the countertop. All that crap seemed awfully familiar, now possessed by some sentimental force that was overwhelming me.
"What is all that? What does this have to do with me? What is the tower...?"
I turned to face Gallows but instead saw my own reflection. I gazed upon my duplicate, my shimmering clone that truly existed nowhere, and how lost he looked. I saw his despair and struggle, but how could you not with it weighing his face down like that.
That poor schmuck. All alone on the other side, unable to do much of anything. Just the exact opposite of myself, here in this cold, hard reality. But this didn't feel real. It hadn't in a long while. Before the book was written. Before moving to the city. Before the deal.
Innocence was the vital ingredient in this stranger's eyes. Unbitten by bitterness, my god, this simpleton was so long gone. I had forgotten what it was to be like you. To be lost and then refound. Bound by the immaterial, I buried you where they could never find you, the other side of here.
Over my howls of joy at this momentous occasion of me reclaiming my former self, I overheard Gallows instruct the young girl to watch over me in these final stages.
"Be sure to wait until it fully dissolves, then give him the sedative. Let him take all of it in before he sleeps. Then have him meet the others."
Gallows gently tapped the edge of the chair and whispered, "Welcome home Charles. Everything will be amazing."
As I absorbed all that I had left behind, every good and decent fiber of my being, the whole of my sane mind, as all that soaked into me all I could think was that everything was already amazing.
It always has been. It always will be.
"Novus Ordo Colligo."
Monday, September 26, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
The Tower of Brahma: Chapter 49 - Boy Cries Wolf (edit)
12/3/07
My brain is broken. Forehead feels hot to the touch as my mind boils alive in my skull. Something has gone horribly wrong.
I spend days at a time sleeping against the barrel of my gun, only waking when Spider comes to bring me some soup. I've let something out of my head, leaving whatever remained vulnerable, defenseless.
They send me to see a specialist, who specializes in something special no doubt. I don't care. Nothing feels real, no one believes me anymore, and there's nowhere to go. So, now I get to sit down with some egghead who wants to poke and prod me, work out my glitches. Awesome.
She comes in and catches my eye immediately. In fact I can't look away, or I won't, and I don't think I want to. She looks away for us both but keeps returning back to my gaze from behind her specs. The glasses frame her small, inquisitive eyes; amber pools drawing me in, eager to capture knowledge.
"Do you know why you're here?” She looks up from her clipboard and file folder. It seems we've started.
"I've a good idea, I suppose." So, I could meet you, I thought to myself.
"Well then, let's begin."
I pour out my soul to her, as it comes so easy to one of my disposition. I've known the zigs and zags of my life for years now. Recalled and examined the woes over and over and here it is all over again. Presented one more time in a rambling stream of sentimental sentences spilling forth and washing over her. She seems unfazed.
I give my diagnoses and the suggestions I tried to act upon to correct it all. The positive wavelengths I tried to ride all the way to a healthy mind. I scraped out the gunk and washed it clean. Molded the mess into a novel and sold it. Wiped my hands of the whole affair and walked away. God knows who's reading my travesty, if anyone at all.
She says very little in response. A flicker of life dances in her as I bombard her with the worst I have, laughing at my misfortunes which I'm sure come across as two-demential as they sound to me. I'm sure her own pains are worse, her suffering paramount to all others, but here she is trying to help me. Or maybe she's just earning her paycheck.
I want her to tell me I'm being selfish, or melodramatic, or that I'm too sensitive. And although I've dreaded it, fought the idea my whole life, that I need medication, that I should be drugged and mellowed out, well, now, that sounds so appealing. I don't want to be sitting on the edge of feeling too much anymore.
It's all lies. My repeated suffering and exorcising of personal demons. It's all flat, unemotional, detached anecdotes about this pretending madman charicature I've made myself into.
I hate being Charles Crown. I hate the Agent Fenris character in my book, always preferring to be Spider, the charismatic psychopath that does as he wants without reservation or consequence. A silent killer with no remorse. But I care, I feel.
"I care too much godammit!” I scream, pounding the table. She does not stir. I kick back the chair and stand. "Why?! Why do I feel so much, yet nothing at all?!"
My anger swells, frustration simmering internally, until I truly feel mad. "I'm feeling something for god's sake! I can't just be making this all up! I just goddamn can not be!"
I flip the table and scream, "This is real fucking pain I feel! Why the fuck can't I just feel it, accept this bullshit, swallow the whole fucking sadness that's making me hate this whole godforsaken world?!"
I reach past the girl across from me who is no longer there and slam against the two-way mirror that they're watching me from behind. I rage against the glass, hoping that I am imbued with enough strength to shatter it where I'm sure the countless others before me were unable. I hope beyond hope that it's me that brings everything crashing down.
But I don't. I just crash to the floor myself in exhaustion, knuckles and palms bruised and bloodied. I'm crying everything out, tears mixing with blood as I wipe the evidence of weakness from my face. I'm trapped in here and no one is listening.
My brain is broken. Forehead feels hot to the touch as my mind boils alive in my skull. Something has gone horribly wrong.
I spend days at a time sleeping against the barrel of my gun, only waking when Spider comes to bring me some soup. I've let something out of my head, leaving whatever remained vulnerable, defenseless.
They send me to see a specialist, who specializes in something special no doubt. I don't care. Nothing feels real, no one believes me anymore, and there's nowhere to go. So, now I get to sit down with some egghead who wants to poke and prod me, work out my glitches. Awesome.
She comes in and catches my eye immediately. In fact I can't look away, or I won't, and I don't think I want to. She looks away for us both but keeps returning back to my gaze from behind her specs. The glasses frame her small, inquisitive eyes; amber pools drawing me in, eager to capture knowledge.
"Do you know why you're here?” She looks up from her clipboard and file folder. It seems we've started.
"I've a good idea, I suppose." So, I could meet you, I thought to myself.
"Well then, let's begin."
I pour out my soul to her, as it comes so easy to one of my disposition. I've known the zigs and zags of my life for years now. Recalled and examined the woes over and over and here it is all over again. Presented one more time in a rambling stream of sentimental sentences spilling forth and washing over her. She seems unfazed.
I give my diagnoses and the suggestions I tried to act upon to correct it all. The positive wavelengths I tried to ride all the way to a healthy mind. I scraped out the gunk and washed it clean. Molded the mess into a novel and sold it. Wiped my hands of the whole affair and walked away. God knows who's reading my travesty, if anyone at all.
She says very little in response. A flicker of life dances in her as I bombard her with the worst I have, laughing at my misfortunes which I'm sure come across as two-demential as they sound to me. I'm sure her own pains are worse, her suffering paramount to all others, but here she is trying to help me. Or maybe she's just earning her paycheck.
I want her to tell me I'm being selfish, or melodramatic, or that I'm too sensitive. And although I've dreaded it, fought the idea my whole life, that I need medication, that I should be drugged and mellowed out, well, now, that sounds so appealing. I don't want to be sitting on the edge of feeling too much anymore.
It's all lies. My repeated suffering and exorcising of personal demons. It's all flat, unemotional, detached anecdotes about this pretending madman charicature I've made myself into.
I hate being Charles Crown. I hate the Agent Fenris character in my book, always preferring to be Spider, the charismatic psychopath that does as he wants without reservation or consequence. A silent killer with no remorse. But I care, I feel.
"I care too much godammit!” I scream, pounding the table. She does not stir. I kick back the chair and stand. "Why?! Why do I feel so much, yet nothing at all?!"
My anger swells, frustration simmering internally, until I truly feel mad. "I'm feeling something for god's sake! I can't just be making this all up! I just goddamn can not be!"
I flip the table and scream, "This is real fucking pain I feel! Why the fuck can't I just feel it, accept this bullshit, swallow the whole fucking sadness that's making me hate this whole godforsaken world?!"
I reach past the girl across from me who is no longer there and slam against the two-way mirror that they're watching me from behind. I rage against the glass, hoping that I am imbued with enough strength to shatter it where I'm sure the countless others before me were unable. I hope beyond hope that it's me that brings everything crashing down.
But I don't. I just crash to the floor myself in exhaustion, knuckles and palms bruised and bloodied. I'm crying everything out, tears mixing with blood as I wipe the evidence of weakness from my face. I'm trapped in here and no one is listening.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Tower of Brahma 48 - Anthropology of Entertainment (edit)
10/18/07
I've been walking up these steps forever, leaving plenty of time for introspection and speculation. Every cycle around the base of this tower marked another ending, another beginning, until the line between blurred. Steps of Eternity, one foot ahead of the other, this was my entire life.
The walking fell to the background and my imagination painted the canvas of my escape. I envisioned character after character building their arc, rising and falling and rising once again. They too were trapped in a circular prison, given life just long enough to come back around enlightened.
I distracted myself with their drama, getting lost in their tragedy, drowning in their passion. I forgot who I was and where I was going, only that I was moving forward. As the stories grew in complexity I found it harder to immerse myself. The variations on a theme weren't enough to distract from my isolation.
They fell in love, they fought, they reconciled. They waged war, they murdered and sought salvation. Beneath their two dimensional personas, a shadow grew. The sun behind my mind casts a long darkness stretching into an infinite web of storytelling. Black and white melded to grey, which folded in on itself and exploded into every color ever.
Nothing was new, only repackaged for the age, in the parlance of the times, the message becoming obscured beneath the blurred surface. The masses became lost in repetition, forgetting that they were moving upwards, instead feeling only that they were repeats of something that once was real.
I was everyone, somewhere else. Here and now, I was just a nameless form rising alone. I stopped walking. I looked up and couldn't see the top of this leviathan tower. Peering down over the side into the abyss of my mistakes and regrets, I felt the urge to plunge. I choked back the gag reflex of my soul and threw myself against the wall.
There had to be some way to find out where I was. How far I'd come. How much longer there was to go. I reached out into the shimmering futura with my mind and saw that I'd be walking steps forever. I sat down and rested my legs.
My head sunk into my hands. The weight of a multiverse pulled it down, made it impossibly heavy. Fake lies revealing truth, that's what was in this damned skull of mine. A hunk of fleshy meat firing electrical impulses. Divine light beaming down upon it, supplying the spark to ignite the slow burning embers. A stiff wind whips up the staircase blowing back my hair.
I withdrew. Pulled everything in as tears burst forth. Liquid poured from my eyes as a full bathtub might, water spilling over the edge as you lower yourself into its warm embrace. A reverse raindrop dripping from the edge of the roof. My stomach went wobbly as a thousand realities swooshed about my person.
I opened my eyes, the wind drying the cool wetness on the side of my face. I saw the bricks all around me. The endless perfect pattern containing all the molecules within. A concrete straw sucking me up into something. I retraced my last steps, following them into the curve of the tower. My eyesight got to just about 180 degrees, give or take, when I spied the marker.
There was a carving on the outside of the steps. I couldn't make it out from here so I got up and leaped down a few steps to get closer. I had to go back until I was almost on top of it. I leaned over the edge, dangling myself from the cusp of certain death so as to read it: XLVIII.
'Stomp-stomp-stomp!'
I scurried back from the edge as the footsteps grew louder. Someone was following. He had to run. Fight or flight surged through his brain, adrenaline through his heart, a chill down his spine. Mad dashing back up the steps, Charles Crown leapt steps two at a time. The sound grew fainter.
I saw another marker on the curve up ahead. When I read it I knew what was left to do. The weight of an entire lifetime of fiction didn't seem as heavy as it once did. Mankind's dreams sloshed about inside my head. I'd carry it as far as I could. To the top if I was able.
Almost at the next marker. Wish me luck.
I've been walking up these steps forever, leaving plenty of time for introspection and speculation. Every cycle around the base of this tower marked another ending, another beginning, until the line between blurred. Steps of Eternity, one foot ahead of the other, this was my entire life.
The walking fell to the background and my imagination painted the canvas of my escape. I envisioned character after character building their arc, rising and falling and rising once again. They too were trapped in a circular prison, given life just long enough to come back around enlightened.
I distracted myself with their drama, getting lost in their tragedy, drowning in their passion. I forgot who I was and where I was going, only that I was moving forward. As the stories grew in complexity I found it harder to immerse myself. The variations on a theme weren't enough to distract from my isolation.
They fell in love, they fought, they reconciled. They waged war, they murdered and sought salvation. Beneath their two dimensional personas, a shadow grew. The sun behind my mind casts a long darkness stretching into an infinite web of storytelling. Black and white melded to grey, which folded in on itself and exploded into every color ever.
Nothing was new, only repackaged for the age, in the parlance of the times, the message becoming obscured beneath the blurred surface. The masses became lost in repetition, forgetting that they were moving upwards, instead feeling only that they were repeats of something that once was real.
I was everyone, somewhere else. Here and now, I was just a nameless form rising alone. I stopped walking. I looked up and couldn't see the top of this leviathan tower. Peering down over the side into the abyss of my mistakes and regrets, I felt the urge to plunge. I choked back the gag reflex of my soul and threw myself against the wall.
There had to be some way to find out where I was. How far I'd come. How much longer there was to go. I reached out into the shimmering futura with my mind and saw that I'd be walking steps forever. I sat down and rested my legs.
My head sunk into my hands. The weight of a multiverse pulled it down, made it impossibly heavy. Fake lies revealing truth, that's what was in this damned skull of mine. A hunk of fleshy meat firing electrical impulses. Divine light beaming down upon it, supplying the spark to ignite the slow burning embers. A stiff wind whips up the staircase blowing back my hair.
I withdrew. Pulled everything in as tears burst forth. Liquid poured from my eyes as a full bathtub might, water spilling over the edge as you lower yourself into its warm embrace. A reverse raindrop dripping from the edge of the roof. My stomach went wobbly as a thousand realities swooshed about my person.
I opened my eyes, the wind drying the cool wetness on the side of my face. I saw the bricks all around me. The endless perfect pattern containing all the molecules within. A concrete straw sucking me up into something. I retraced my last steps, following them into the curve of the tower. My eyesight got to just about 180 degrees, give or take, when I spied the marker.
There was a carving on the outside of the steps. I couldn't make it out from here so I got up and leaped down a few steps to get closer. I had to go back until I was almost on top of it. I leaned over the edge, dangling myself from the cusp of certain death so as to read it: XLVIII.
'Stomp-stomp-stomp!'
I scurried back from the edge as the footsteps grew louder. Someone was following. He had to run. Fight or flight surged through his brain, adrenaline through his heart, a chill down his spine. Mad dashing back up the steps, Charles Crown leapt steps two at a time. The sound grew fainter.
I saw another marker on the curve up ahead. When I read it I knew what was left to do. The weight of an entire lifetime of fiction didn't seem as heavy as it once did. Mankind's dreams sloshed about inside my head. I'd carry it as far as I could. To the top if I was able.
Almost at the next marker. Wish me luck.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Tower of Brahma: Chapter 47. the Meaning of Life (completed) [edit]
08/02/07
I went out for a walk last night. I wandered down 2nd Ave, turned on 3rd, made a right on 1st. From there I crisscrossed through the Lower East Side. I walked by every bar I was familiar with, but didn't stop in any of them.
I was looking for something, not meaning to find anything. An empty quest through the lonely night, hoping things might make sense with some pavement under my feet. I decided to get a drink after all.
Back up into the East Village, Ave A's deviants all about me, I knew where to go. Lucy's; Agent Spider's drop point of choice. I had Marco bring me a Zyviec. He asked where Spider was as he added a shot of Polish Vodka to the bar. I tossed back the shot and told him I was solo tonight.
I polished off the beer and stepped outside for a smoke. It was near closing time and Tompkins Square Park was a black void before me. The gates were all locked and the police weren't about, yet I knew someone was in there. I could hear them; could hear the wail of his trumpet.
It was sad and jazzy. Dancing among the leaves, slipping around the maze-like walkway. It must have had a hypnotic effect on me as I found myself leaping the fence and wandering into the darkness. I followed the sound of the horn towards the center of the park, where the benches all arc around two massive trees. The moon beamed down through the gaps in the treetops illuminating the dancefloor. I was alone with myself standing amid the lunar puddles.
A man stepped into the light playing his horn. He wore a disheveled suit and a frazzled head of hair with matching beard. His eyes were closed as he sauntered towards me. The moon highlighted the cracks in his features. I thought of my father.
His slow, sad tune rode out on a long and nearly inaudible note.
"Hey kid. Thanks for coming."
"I guess I didn't have much of a choice. I've been at the mercy of random events for quite some time now." I really had. I had finished a book I didn't recall writing. It was soon to be released and in the meantime I was visiting therapists and specialists and psychiatrists at the behest of the publisher. I wasn't sure of anything anymore.
"Oh, I remember those days. So afraid I was being controlled, manipulated, that I often ran away from anything and everything. We always were so good at running away..."
The moonlight shifted as it began to turn away in the night sky. It provided a pathway to the benches where the man with the trumpet sat wearily. He spun the horn around his fingers with a practiced ease. With his other hand he took out a pair of glasses and slipped them on.
"But I remember this night too. Alone and wandering. Called into the dark by the beckoning blare of brass. Heh. A beer and a shot burning my belly. We never would've had the balls to jump the fence, let alone come in here this late, all alone..."
I examined his face as the leaves parted in the wind and the light shone upon him. The same glasses I picked up at Fabulous Fanny's. The beard, although much thicker, was still patchy in the same places. The I-ching tattoo on the left forearm peeking out from his rolled up sleeve...
"So, you're me then? I'm visiting myself in the past? How old am I, I mean...you?"
He chuckled and stared me down. I was guessing he had to be almost my father's age now.
"You don't even want to know how this is all possible. That's what I loved about this age. 30, right? Still had that sense of wonder and excitement. As for me, well, seeing as this is the year of our lord 2023, well then, I must be just shy of...forty seven. Man. Forty seven."
He looked down at the ground for a lingering, lost moment. The trumpet's twirl came to an abrupt stop as he glanced up at me.
"C'mon, sit a spell."
So, I dropped onto the bench next to him and stared down at my shredded Adidas on the pavement, my sock just protruding from the right pinky toe.
"Do I figure this out?"
"What, life?"
"Yeah."
"You already did. Now you're just learning to live with it."
The moonlight began to shrink away, letting the night envelop us. The remaining light focused to a point; thousands of leaves casting fractal patterns in a chaotic dance all melting into one spotlight, slipping towards a headlight, into a mere flashlight. It refined to a point, a laser, as it floated down the space between us and up my body. It rested on my forehead and fired.
"Here, put these on."
A pair of sunglasses were being placed on my face in the blinding white. I eventually got them adjusted and the world came into view.
"How is it daytime?"
I was staring out at the park midday, with dogs being walked, skateboarders flipping and tripping, and joggers bouncing by. The sun was everywhere.
"Okay, I just brought you through time so, you know, take a minute and soak it in."
Minor details made it to a secret part of my brain. Clothes were familiar, yet foreign. Bizarre technology was in place of small things like books, cell phones, stereos. Even people themselves felt somewhat alien.
"2023? I guess not much is different. People in a park."
A spin of the trumpet got my attention as he turned to me and said, "Let's walk."
I felt stumbly and awkward. Paying too much attention to walking, to breathing. I assumed everyone was staring, but no one was. The man next to me just smiled as we walked out and down 7th street.
"So, yeah, as you can see, life is just about the same. Some major changes in the air, but so many behind us as well."
Billboards and ads were either holographic, following me as I passed or just paint on a wall. Stores ranged from squatters sitting out selling their goods (glass bowls, hemp, and paper books), to high end, eye scanner designer vintage clothing stores big enough to fit five people comfortably.
"What about the book? What happens with the Tower of Brahma? I don't know the ending."
He stopped spinning the horn and placed it into his pocket. With a smile he said, "Well, what can I tell you? It makes an impact. Of sorts."
"What's that mean? You know what I had planned. How does it end?"
He chuckled to himself. "You'll read it eventually. Live it actually. God, I miss being you."
I put everything that's been happening to me in perspective. Somehow I was still alive. There was some purpose to all this. But I had to know.
"Is it my ending? What I really wanted? Did they make it something horrible? I wanted a happy ending...I did."
Tears welled up and I squeezed them out casually. Future me put his arm around my shoulder and with a grand sweeping gesture he wiped away the veil of reality.
"It's always a happy ending."
My arms weak, I clawed the glasses from my face, light turned to dark, letting them fall to the sidewalk. The night warbled and warped before me. The people, the sun, the future...gone.
I dropped to a knee and then tumbled forward onto my face. Consciousness sat dormant within my body as it heaved and hurled up the booze and stomach chunks. Every 20 minutes or so light made it's way into my open eyes.
Agent Spider walked up and lifted me by the back of my shirt. He began to drag me forward, and five feet later my legs found their footing. I was working my way up to lurching forward.
"C'mon kid, let's get you home."
A single note dissipated down 7th street and out into tomorrow.
I went out for a walk last night. I wandered down 2nd Ave, turned on 3rd, made a right on 1st. From there I crisscrossed through the Lower East Side. I walked by every bar I was familiar with, but didn't stop in any of them.
I was looking for something, not meaning to find anything. An empty quest through the lonely night, hoping things might make sense with some pavement under my feet. I decided to get a drink after all.
Back up into the East Village, Ave A's deviants all about me, I knew where to go. Lucy's; Agent Spider's drop point of choice. I had Marco bring me a Zyviec. He asked where Spider was as he added a shot of Polish Vodka to the bar. I tossed back the shot and told him I was solo tonight.
I polished off the beer and stepped outside for a smoke. It was near closing time and Tompkins Square Park was a black void before me. The gates were all locked and the police weren't about, yet I knew someone was in there. I could hear them; could hear the wail of his trumpet.
It was sad and jazzy. Dancing among the leaves, slipping around the maze-like walkway. It must have had a hypnotic effect on me as I found myself leaping the fence and wandering into the darkness. I followed the sound of the horn towards the center of the park, where the benches all arc around two massive trees. The moon beamed down through the gaps in the treetops illuminating the dancefloor. I was alone with myself standing amid the lunar puddles.
A man stepped into the light playing his horn. He wore a disheveled suit and a frazzled head of hair with matching beard. His eyes were closed as he sauntered towards me. The moon highlighted the cracks in his features. I thought of my father.
His slow, sad tune rode out on a long and nearly inaudible note.
"Hey kid. Thanks for coming."
"I guess I didn't have much of a choice. I've been at the mercy of random events for quite some time now." I really had. I had finished a book I didn't recall writing. It was soon to be released and in the meantime I was visiting therapists and specialists and psychiatrists at the behest of the publisher. I wasn't sure of anything anymore.
"Oh, I remember those days. So afraid I was being controlled, manipulated, that I often ran away from anything and everything. We always were so good at running away..."
The moonlight shifted as it began to turn away in the night sky. It provided a pathway to the benches where the man with the trumpet sat wearily. He spun the horn around his fingers with a practiced ease. With his other hand he took out a pair of glasses and slipped them on.
"But I remember this night too. Alone and wandering. Called into the dark by the beckoning blare of brass. Heh. A beer and a shot burning my belly. We never would've had the balls to jump the fence, let alone come in here this late, all alone..."
I examined his face as the leaves parted in the wind and the light shone upon him. The same glasses I picked up at Fabulous Fanny's. The beard, although much thicker, was still patchy in the same places. The I-ching tattoo on the left forearm peeking out from his rolled up sleeve...
"So, you're me then? I'm visiting myself in the past? How old am I, I mean...you?"
He chuckled and stared me down. I was guessing he had to be almost my father's age now.
"You don't even want to know how this is all possible. That's what I loved about this age. 30, right? Still had that sense of wonder and excitement. As for me, well, seeing as this is the year of our lord 2023, well then, I must be just shy of...forty seven. Man. Forty seven."
He looked down at the ground for a lingering, lost moment. The trumpet's twirl came to an abrupt stop as he glanced up at me.
"C'mon, sit a spell."
So, I dropped onto the bench next to him and stared down at my shredded Adidas on the pavement, my sock just protruding from the right pinky toe.
"Do I figure this out?"
"What, life?"
"Yeah."
"You already did. Now you're just learning to live with it."
The moonlight began to shrink away, letting the night envelop us. The remaining light focused to a point; thousands of leaves casting fractal patterns in a chaotic dance all melting into one spotlight, slipping towards a headlight, into a mere flashlight. It refined to a point, a laser, as it floated down the space between us and up my body. It rested on my forehead and fired.
"Here, put these on."
A pair of sunglasses were being placed on my face in the blinding white. I eventually got them adjusted and the world came into view.
"How is it daytime?"
I was staring out at the park midday, with dogs being walked, skateboarders flipping and tripping, and joggers bouncing by. The sun was everywhere.
"Okay, I just brought you through time so, you know, take a minute and soak it in."
Minor details made it to a secret part of my brain. Clothes were familiar, yet foreign. Bizarre technology was in place of small things like books, cell phones, stereos. Even people themselves felt somewhat alien.
"2023? I guess not much is different. People in a park."
A spin of the trumpet got my attention as he turned to me and said, "Let's walk."
I felt stumbly and awkward. Paying too much attention to walking, to breathing. I assumed everyone was staring, but no one was. The man next to me just smiled as we walked out and down 7th street.
"So, yeah, as you can see, life is just about the same. Some major changes in the air, but so many behind us as well."
Billboards and ads were either holographic, following me as I passed or just paint on a wall. Stores ranged from squatters sitting out selling their goods (glass bowls, hemp, and paper books), to high end, eye scanner designer vintage clothing stores big enough to fit five people comfortably.
"What about the book? What happens with the Tower of Brahma? I don't know the ending."
He stopped spinning the horn and placed it into his pocket. With a smile he said, "Well, what can I tell you? It makes an impact. Of sorts."
"What's that mean? You know what I had planned. How does it end?"
He chuckled to himself. "You'll read it eventually. Live it actually. God, I miss being you."
I put everything that's been happening to me in perspective. Somehow I was still alive. There was some purpose to all this. But I had to know.
"Is it my ending? What I really wanted? Did they make it something horrible? I wanted a happy ending...I did."
Tears welled up and I squeezed them out casually. Future me put his arm around my shoulder and with a grand sweeping gesture he wiped away the veil of reality.
"It's always a happy ending."
My arms weak, I clawed the glasses from my face, light turned to dark, letting them fall to the sidewalk. The night warbled and warped before me. The people, the sun, the future...gone.
I dropped to a knee and then tumbled forward onto my face. Consciousness sat dormant within my body as it heaved and hurled up the booze and stomach chunks. Every 20 minutes or so light made it's way into my open eyes.
Agent Spider walked up and lifted me by the back of my shirt. He began to drag me forward, and five feet later my legs found their footing. I was working my way up to lurching forward.
"C'mon kid, let's get you home."
A single note dissipated down 7th street and out into tomorrow.
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