Judgment Day.
“I’m
Joshua Bouwer, and this is my good friend Michael Potok,” the giant behind the
wheel of the big red pickup truck bellowed in his happy, gratingly loud voice.
The front seat of the truck was moved back farther than the manufacturer had
unthoughtfully not provided, so that Stacey’s long legs were twisted, one
painfully too low and the other with his knee tucked up close to his chest. Jack
sat close to Stacey, dabbing at the ex-boxer’s closed eye with a handkerchief
provided by the small man, Michael, and the girl in the black sweats and white
fuzzy socks sat far across the rear seat huddled against the door, apparently
drawing pictures in the air, jabbing, dotting, swirling, grabbing.
 |
| Illustration by Harrison Christian Larsen ©2016 - Vestigial Surreality: EIGHT |
“Do
you have any idea what’s going on, Joshua?” Stacey said, groggy and seething
with pain.
“I
have absolutely no idea!” Joshua shouted, pounding on the steering wheel and
laughing a laugh that sounded like he might be related to a certain old man
that lived far north near a little candy-striped pole.
“Voice,
down,” Michael said softly, sitting stiffly, hugging his canes against his
chest. He wore big round glasses, and he stared straight through the
windshield, keeping his head unnaturally still.
“How
does it feel?” Jack said, wincing sympathetically, holding the bloodied
handkerchief against Stacey’s damaged eye. “I can’t tell if it’s gone or not.”
“I
think I’ve had worse than this, don’t worry,” Stacey said, but unsure himself
how badly damaged he was, except for a cracked rib—he knew that one, too well—and
the big knuckle on his right hand, that was probably fractured, as well. Still,
he sighed, it felt kind of good punching those little creeps. Normally, he
wouldn’t consider hitting a smaller man, but when there were a whole bunch of
the Martians, he didn’t feel too guilty. He never wanted to say it out loud,
but he knew they had got the best of him, they had trashed him up one side and
down the other. It had been a long while since his barely modest days in the
ring, but still, he shouldn’t have missed so many punches, it was embarrassing,
he had felt like a grizzly bear taking swipes at clever salmon.
“I’m
Stacey, by the way,” Stacey said, his tongue pushing at one of his lower teeth
that was definitely loose. “But you seemed to know our names, how was that?”
“I
didn’t know who was who,” Joshua bellowed as if he were calling to someone
seated packed into the bed of the truck. “But I figured the girl was named
Sandy, although I guess she could have been Stacey and you could have been
Sandy.”
Stacey
peered at Jack with his good eye and grinned, shaking his head, and Jack got
the message, laughing: the giant up front had a few loose marbles, but he
certainly was lovable!
“So
that must be Sandy, and she seems to be doing sign language,” Stacey said,
glancing at the girl whose hands were constantly in motion. Strangely, Stacey
seemed to recognize what she appeared to be doing; it was as if she had a big
tablet before her, though an invisible one, and she was opening and closing
windows, moving them about.
“Shut
up,” the girl said, her hands constantly fluttering.
“That
was rude,” Jack said, looking over at her. He smiled, she looked just like he
thought she would, his ghost, and he nodded his head, because it seemed like he
had known her forever, it seemed as if she had always been there, throughout
his life, and now here she sat, scooted across the seat from him, in the flesh,
beautiful and sparkling. For some reason, he always pictured her with a full
mane of shaggy red-golden hair, but she had close-cropped blonde hair. As he
watched his eyes bulged and he gasped as she reached a hand and started tugging
her hair out long and shaggy, thoughtlessly changing her whole appearance in a
few moments.
“You
shut up too, Jack, this is important. I’ve got my interface back, but I still
don’t have control. Mr. Odd Jobb must still be messing with my system,” the
girl said distractedly.
“Oh,
well, I guess that makes sense,” Jack said, shaking off his amazement—hey, he’d
go with this, this wasn’t the weirdest part of his day—he smirked and rolled
his eyes to Stacey, but the big man was not looking at Jack, he was watching
the girl. He had seen the miraculous change as well. It was not a wig, not a
trick, no sleight of hand involved, but the girl had changed reality without
even thinking about it.
“Hey,”
Jack said, patting Stacey’s arm. “You were great back there, that was amazing.”
“That?
Jack, I got my ass kicked, if you didn’t notice,” Stacey said, feeling more
depressed than excited, or even frightened. “I am in the worst shape of my
life. I was miserable.”
“Are
you kidding? You must have taken on ten guys, and you weren’t even scared, you
just piled in there and started knocking heads together, I’ve never seen
anything like that. You are a hero!”
The
girl, not pausing in her hand ballet, snorted.
“We
are in big trouble,” Michael said from the front passenger seat.
“Oh,
you know, it will be okay, everything’s going to be okay. Remember, Old Ben
said not to be afraid, that we should enjoy it! Isn’t this great?” bellowed the
giant, causing everyone else in the truck to wince.
“Voice,
down,” Michael repeated, firmly, it seemed to be a private ritual between the
two. In fact, it sounded as if the calm little man were telling a very large
and beloved dog to get down off the furniture for the countless time.
“Sorry!
Sorry! I forgot! I’ll keep it down!” Joshua bellowed again, if possible his
thunderous voice even louder than any time before.
“Old
Ben?” Jack and Stacey said to the back of the giant’s head, tensing and leaning
forward.
“HE
SAID THAT YOU WOULD LOVE THAT!” Joshua the giant roared.
“Voice,
down!” Michael commanded, cuffing the driver of the vehicle on the arm.
“OKAY!
OKAY! SORRY BUT THIS IS SO EXCITING!” Joshua roared, beyond any semblance of
control, slamming his hand down so hard on the steering wheel that the whole
truck vibrated warningly.
“This
is a tall, old man, dressed kind of oddly?” Stacey queried as Joshua drove.
“I’ll
say, oddly! He was wearing a bathrobe!” Joshua spluttered, half laughing, a
spray of spittle sprinkling the inside of the windshield.
“A
bathrobe?” Jack said.
“No,”
Michael said, “not a bathrobe. It was more like monk robes.”
“Yeah,
yeah, like a tall, skinny monk,” Joshua agreed, obviously smiling, and somehow
managing to tone down his voice.
“He
appeared in our house, last night. Late last night, all the doors were locked,
and Joshua and I were going over our website, and he just kind of walked up
behind us in the kitchen while we were talking,” Michael said, but barely
finished speaking before Joshua interrupted excitedly.
“We
were arguing about this guy, this pastor guy, Bobby Cilantor, and Old Ben kind
of came up and spoke softly, like he was trying to calmly introduce himself,
and he almost scared me to death! Seriously, I thought I was going to have a
heart attack,” Joshua said, speaking too fast, wriggling around in the seat to
look back at them, of course not looking at the road racing at the front of the
truck.
“Watch
the road!” Michael and Stacey and Jack all shouted at once, as if they had
rehearsed a chorus for a play.
“SORRY!”
boomed Joshua.
Sandy
hardly paid any attention to the rest of them, so focused was she on her invisible
tablet.
“He
talked to us for about an hour and told us to be at the Coffee Dump this
morning, and that we should be ready to take you out of there at the sign,”
Michael reported, half turned in his seat, yet clutching his canes to his
chest.
“Which
sign? There were so many signs, all day long,” Jack said, bouncing on the seat.
Stacey
grunted as his aching ribs jostled and Jack immediately simmered down.
“We
were not sure,” Michael said, calmly, “he said we would know it when we saw
it.”
“I
thought it was when we saw Old Ben in the Coffee Dump,” Joshua said, "over by
the fireplace, but he shook his head at me, and then I thought it was when he
just disappeared like a magician, but then I saw Stacey get the book and I
thought that must be the sign. But first I thought it was a sign the way the
waitress kept staring at the big guy, oops, sorry, I mean Stacey.”
“It
was Saturn,” Michael said, softly, and everyone was quiet for a while. Then
Michael continued, “I saw it, in the sky. The whole ceiling disappeared and I
could see the sky, and I looked directly at the sun and it didn’t hurt my eyes,
and then it turned into the planet Saturn, and that’s when I told Joshua we had
to hurry to the truck and come pick you up at the back of the alley, that’s
where he said you would be.”
“We
went out the back door, and I actually had to carry Michael, and he didn’t even
mind, but still, now that I think of it, the sign might have been the
earthquake,” Joshua said, nodding his big head vigorously, “that was a pretty
big sign, too. But then there were those girls at the next table, remember, I
heard one of them say Stacey, and another one said Sandy…”
Michael
sighed, but didn’t’ say anything. This too appeared to be a private ritual
between them.
“Did
he tell you what we’re supposed to do, what’s going on?” Jack said,
interrupting the giant whom he sensed was about to go off on a tangent, leaning
forward, allowing Stacey to slump with his eyes closed against the door.
“Go
to Jack’s tree, at midnight,” Michael said.
“My
tree?” Jack said, “I don’t exactly—have
a tree.”
“The
tree in the park, with your name carved in the trunk,” Stacey said, quietly,
not opening his eyes.
“Yes,”
Jack said with wonder, “that just appeared there this morning, my name, on my
tree, I mean the tree I sit under when I write.”
“Your
name?” Michael said, eyes wide behind his round glasses.
“The
letters, widely spaced, J-A-C-K, carved deep into the tree, weathered, it
looked like it had been there for years and years, and yet I’ve never seen it
before.”
Mr.
Kronoss sat in the courtroom with his umbrella before him on the shiny
tabletop. A crisp white bandage covered the bridge of his nose, and one of his
eyes was darkened and puffy. He glanced across at the other table and looked at
Mr. Enseladus, whose arm was in a sling. The small angry-eyed savage stared
back at him, his bulging eyes luminous. But there would be no violence, not in
this chamber, though the both of them would dearly love to have a go for a
second time.
The
tall door at the front dais opened and the Shaannii entered.
Mr.
Kronoss and Mr. Enseladus both rose as the Shaannii appeared, and each of them
offered half-bows at the waist, as was required of the occasion.
“Please,
take your seats,” the Shaannii spoke softly, but her voice echoed the length of
the great chamber. The men sat down, each at his table. The Shaannii remained
standing, tall and severe in white robes from her throat to the silver slippers
which peeked beyond the metallic blue border of her skirts. A gleaming hot
jewel sparkled just beneath her chin. Her billowing white hair was drawn
severely back from her face, piled high behind her head in what looked like a
frozen fountain.
“We
have reviewed the doings of late, and the charges that both of you bring
against each other. We must say…this is something that we have not witnessed
before, not across thousands of cycles, the Keepers of Code clashing with
Chaos. Resulting to violence, and we might add, violence of the most mundane
kind.”
Mr.
Kronoss and Mr. Enseladus lowered their faces.
“What
happened violated code. But we condescend to admit, we did not find everything…disinteresting.”
Each
man slightly lifted his head, and peeked at the Shaannii.
“However,”
the Shaannii continued, “we shall have no more interference, from either the
Keepers of Code, nor Chaos. We shall have no more stumbling blocks laid, but
shall allow the code to evolve, as it must, as it always has, and as it ever
shall do.”
Mr.
Enseladus timidly raised his good arm, pointing his fingers at the vaults
above.
Mr.
Kronoss abruptly stood, facing Mr. Enseladus. “This one has been copying that
movie, cloning himself. I want it doubly understood that he and his gang of
abominations terminated three of my managers, good managers.”
“Do
not speak to us,” The Shaannii said. “We overlook all. We watch. We oversee. We
judge.”
Mr.
Kronoss sat.
The
Shaannii looked at Mr. Enseladus, and her eyes flashed, but she did not speak.
Mr. Enseladus lowered his hand and turned his face down. The Shaannii turned to
Mr. Kronoss, and he too lowered his face.
“Our
judgment is that the minor world in question shall be shattered, at one minute
after midnight, including all digitals therein. Our judgment is that Number
Seven shall not be harmed, nor blocked. Neither hindered nor threatened. So let
the code live and evolve as life,” the Shaannii concluded, and turned, and
quietly exited through the tall door at the back of the dais.
As
one, Mr. Kronoss and Mr. Enseladus exhaled shuddering breaths, and each stood
and pushed away from the table. Mr. Kronoss snatched his umbrella and twirled
it a few times, then planted it loudly upon the tiled floor of the great
chamber, its echoing boom reverberating through the vast space.
Mr.
Enseladus did not meet his gaze but abruptly spun on his heel and quick-marched
from the chamber, his athletic gear swishing as he moved.
“Oh,
did I miss it?” a voice said, and Mr. Kronoss looked to where a tall old man in
robes came slowly toward him up the lines of empty pews.
“Aajeel,”
Mr. Kronoss said, softly, lips compressed. “Always late. Always lurking.”
“Mr.
Kronoss, my dear friend,” said Aajeel, halting several rows of pews away from
the other man.
“I
think you must have had something to do with the events of the day,” Mr.
Kronoss said, staring hard at the other man.
“Raising
a few pigeons from the dead, nothing much beyond that. Oh, I may have lost a
paperback book, one I think that might perhaps have complemented a book you
gave away,” Aajeel said, smiling.
Mr.
Kronoss snorted. “At least your clothes are clean. But I had very high hopes
for…Jack, in this iteration.” And he marched past the tall old man, following
in the footsteps of Mr. Enseladus, departing the chamber.
“A
minute after midnight,” Aajeel murmured. He slowly turned and worked his way
along the same route as his contemporaries, but moving much, much slower.
“Oh
my goodness, I’ve got it,” Number Seven said, all the tension flooding from her
body. Thank God, oh thank God, thank
God…THANK GOD! She was so very relieved. She shook her tangle of gold-red
hair from her face and laughed out loud.
“You’ve
got what?” Jack said, edging toward her, trying to get a peek at her invisible
device.
“Jack,”
she said, giving him a dazzling smile, “I am so very glad I got to meet you.
Weird, yeah, so very weird, but I can’t think of a historical figure I’d wish
to meet more, you are my hero, and my idol, and I can only wish you the best.”
“What
do you mean?” Jack said, feeling unsettled by her words. What she said was not
exactly gibberish, but still, it was pretty much little better than babble.
“And
you,” she said, in a darker tone of voice, looking across Jack at Stacey, who
had his good eye open and was staring at her blankly. “You are not supposed to
be here. As far as I can see, this whole mess is your fault. But that’s you, isn’t it? And I’ll tell you, buddy, I
am not and have never been Stacey’s girl,
do you understand?”
And she vanished.
Jack
jumped away from her vacant seat, which was slowly rising up out of the
depression her body had just been making.
“Where
did she go?” Michael snapped, trying to get a view of the rear seat with the
mirror in the visor above him.
“She’s
gone? Just like that? Where’d she go!” Joshua thundered, staring back and forth
between her vacated spot and the road outside the windshield. The truck swerved
from side to side.
“I
seem to have that effect these days,” Stacey said, sighing, again closing his
eyes.
Seven
abruptly snapped into being upon her couch, the crystal sandbox spread before
her, and she dropped to her knees on the thick rug, and she vomited up her
guts. Unbelievably her whole belly clenched into a fist and she voided what
seemed like gallons of murky dark sludge, which spread out about her on the
floor.
She
had absolutely no idea what all this was about, but she felt deathly ill. She
pushed herself out of the mess and muck and plunked back down on the couch.
With a whisk of her finger the rug and all the filth (it stank, it was worse
than throwing up in RL) vanished and she waved her hand to spread a clean pine
scent in the air, then settling back she got rid of the filthy black sweats and
dirty fuzzy white socks and now she cuddled on the couch in clean underwear, an
oversized t-shirt, a new pair of fuzzy white socks, and her softest blanket.
And for the first time ever in this place, she fell into a deep, deep sleep,
perchance to dream.
He saw his mother
disappearing in the crowd, and he remembered, this was when he was seven years
old, he had been lost at the zoo for almost an hour, the first half hour was
very exciting, he ran along the monkey cages watching as the little apes grew
more and more belligerent, some of them actually flinging feces at him, but
time was passing, and more and more he realized how alone he was, a
seven-year-old boy, and he was nearing tears now, and then he had caught sight
of Mama, walking and laughing, seemingly unconcerned where her seven-year-old
son had gone, and Stacey ran after her, but kept getting separated by the crowd
of milling people, and soon he was bumping into things, falling over, screaming
out Mama, Mama wait, Mama, but people began pushing him and laughing until he
was shrieking, but this had all already happened, this couldn’t be a dream, it
was a memory, only no, this was no memory, he was here, running, weeping
inconsolably, it was real, and people actually were pointing their fingers in
his face as he passed them, and they laughed uproariously, they had never seen
anything as hilarious as a panicky seven-year-old boy, lost at the zoo, but not
crying because he was lost, but crying because he kept catching glimpses of his
mother, and she was laughing, and he caught sight of her looking back, her eyes
meeting his briefly, and she laughed and ran with her friends, her big, hulking
adult male friends, Mama, Stacey called and then, finally, he caught up to her,
she was standing very still, and as he reached her, he realized he should not
touch her, for she was formed completely of crystal, and he had been told
forever that you don’t play with crystal, it was expensive, you will break it,
but he was so sad and terrified by this point that he couldn’t help himself, he
threw his arms about Mama, and of course she shattered, she turned into a
million pieces of falling, dropping shards and bits of glass, and the zoo went
quiet as everyone drew around, circling the two, mother and son, and it was
deathly quiet as Stacey stood above the mound of sparkling pieces of his
mother, and the pieces begin to move—they lift up and Stacey watches with
horror, and he cannot move, the pieces are little ones, little zeroes, all the
same, and bits of ones and zeroes scramble about, an angry nest of ants, and
Stacey wants to move, he wants to run, but he cannot as the little animated
creatures, the ones and zeroes, they surround him, they mill all about him,
they clamber over his feet and Stacey blubbers silently, because he knows, he
realizes, this is still his Mama, it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t care that she
is thousands, millions of bits of animated crystal pieces, he wants her, he
wants his Mama—
—Stacey
starts awake, bumping his good eye against the glass of the window, and it
takes him a moment to remember where he is, that he has fallen forward against
the glass, and he remembers what kind of trouble he is in, and then he realizes
he is weeping, both from his good eye, and painfully from his damaged, swollen
eye.
“Are
you okay?” Jack asks.
“It’s
all ending, isn’t it? None of this is real, is it?” he says, hardly knowing if
he speaks to the boy, or to himself, or to no one at all. The nightmare still
surrounds him, he expects at any moment to be swallowed up by an angry swarm of
crystal ones and zeroes.
“Hey,
it doesn’t matter, okay?” Jack says, and tears flow from his eyes, but he is
smiling at Stacey, his eyes sparkling with tears. “We finally got to meet each
other, right? This time, finally, we met!”
And
they are sitting close, holding hands, and Jack places his cheek against
Stacey’s shoulder.
“Yes,
this time, this time, Jack, we met this time. Yes, Jack. I’m very proud of you,
Jack,” Stacey says, very softly, into Jack’s ear. “Even if everything goes
black, if it all falls down, I don’t care, I’m glad I met you, and I’m so proud
of you.”
“Is
the world ending?” Michael says, peeking at them from around the front seat.
“Don’t
say that,” Joshua says, still driving the truck, and amazingly, he is speaking
as softly as the rest of them.
“It’s
okay,” Jack says to them all, “just look at the sunshine out there. Isn’t that
beautiful?”
“It
can’t end,” Joshua says, “because Old Ben told us to take Jack and Stacey to
the tree in the park, right?”
The
crystal sandbox atop Seven’s coffee table stood glistening, a terrarium
bustling with life, now night, lights glowing from the city spread out close to
the mountains, and Seven lies sleeping on her couch, and her sleep is fitful,
she stirs and cries out, softly, and her hand reaches for the security of her
crystal sandbox, she reaches and touches the perfect crystal, it is warm
beneath her fingertips, and she smiles in her sleep.
Cracks
form all over the glass rectangle. The crystal sandbox vibrates.
Seven
opened her eyes and found the warmly glowing sandbox with her gaze, and she
smiled, but then noticed the cracks forming all over the crystal walls.
“What?”
she says, half sitting.
Her
grandfather clock begins chiming from the darkness of the chamber.
She
watches as the crystal sandbox on her coffee table hums loudly and vibrates,
she actually sees the glass walls bending and flexing, faster and faster, and
she listens to the clock tolling the hour, she has lost count of how many
chimes have struck, but it seems to go on, the tolling chimes, it seems that
there cannot be that many hours in a day, and the crystal sandbox is now
shaking violently, a rectangle more formed of cracks now than perfect glass.
“No,”
she breathes, sitting up and leaning forward, placing both her palms on the
glass, “no, stop it. No, stop.”
The
grandfather clock hits its final toll. Seven sits locked in place, holding onto
the crystal sandbox, willing the glass to heal. She will hold it together. This
is her place.
She
sits in quiet, breathing hard, staring at the complicated world inside the
crystal.
It
shatters. The crystal sandbox becomes a torrent of falling crystal rubble, all
at once, her little world detonates and falls to the floor of her Inner
Sanctum. The pieces vanish as they strike the floor, quietly. It has all happened
at once, in silence, her own world has ended.
“Jack!”
Seven cried, covering her face.
