Circular Motion

by Ripple Reddwoord

  “Why don’t he leave me alone?” There was a red light up ahead at the end of the block. “Stupid kid.”

  “Oh.” I almost went through it but then I remembered you’re supposed to stop when they’re red even when there aren’t any cars. This one time I was driving to McDonald’s at night after seeing the video for Free as a Bird and I ran a light with an ambulance behind me cuz there weren’t any other cars out on the road. The ambulance honked and flashed its lights for a second and then at the next light tried to pull up along side me. I sped up and turned off into a Denny’s and waited for a while before getting back onto the road but the ambulance guy was behind me again. Then I tried to ignore him and went into a McDonald’s drive-through and ordered two hamburgers but the ambulance pulled into the lot and parked next to me so I drove past the pick-up window without getting my food.

  “Sorry to be such a bother.” It was the girl again. I looked over at her in the sanguine light. She had her hand on the door latch and her head was still turned to her side out the window. Then the light turned green and I started driving again. Her door wasn’t locked.

  “Where do you want to go?” It was dark but you couldn’t see any stars so maybe it was cloudy outside.

  “I don’t know.” She said that quickly. (preoccupied) Out of her back pocket she retrieved the cigarette pack and pulled one from the set. “Do you mind?”

  “No. It’s ok.” People had done it before.

  She lit the cigarette filtered this time and I could hear the pop of the lighter as she sparked the flame. It reverberated in the car. “You don’t talk much do you?”

  “Huh?” I kept trying to look at the sky through the windshield and between the sidelined trees. I remembered once being in a convertible and looking up and seeing everything. It was huge.

  “You haven’t tried to start a conversation with me yet. No ‘what’s your name’ or ‘where are you from’.” She was staring at the glowing cigarette in her hand.

  “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s not a bad thing. Different.” She opened her window a crack, ashed, and closed it again. “I usually feel distanced from dialogues other people start anyway. I’m talking but my mind is somewhere else.”

  What she said kind of reminded me of the life dream. I never really explained it, did I? Imagine one day having an accident and incurring brain damage so your mind doesn’t function properly anymore and loosing something like your memory. You don’t even know what it is to remember stuff anymore. But there’s this feeling that pops up every now and then that tells you something is missing. Memory exists just not for you. That’s the life dream; you’re living but you’re missing out on something bigger.

  “Our lives are so boring. Including mine.”

  Another block went by. Every now and then my contacts would make me squint and the world blurred when I squinted. “So where do you want me to go now?”

  She was looking back at her cigarette. Sometimes she would blow on it and the embers would flare up a little. “I don’t know.”

  “I have to get a hotel. We can just get one with two beds if you’d like.” I squinted at the next stop sign it blended into another car’s taillights. This one time in high school I remember looking at a sign gray from behind and blinking and having an image of a red stop sign superimposed on it. When we passed the sign and looked back I found out it was really a red stop sign but I thought maybe I figured it out from the octagonal shape of the thing.

  She didn’t say anything back to me about what she wanted to do. I thought it was weird but I figured it was ok. Who would take a ride from a complete étranger? Sometimes people are strange. But then again she didn’t think I was a stranger.

  I drove around the streets trying not to make circles for a while hoping to run into a hotel. I remember listening to this fuzzy station called I think KCFU that reminded me of this dream I had once about Björk. (mother) I was living in this communal dorm where everyone had beds in the same room. This friend of mine Jen was there. She was friends with Björk I think. Jen was depressed and Björk came in and sang to cheer her up. I don’t remember what the song was but I started singing along. Then I stopped singing cuz I was afraid Björk might think I was one of those crazy fanatical fans that mails her poison or breaks in to her relatives’ homes in Iceland. Instead though she was very kind and caring and hugged me and kissed me on the nose and whispered something in my ear I think in Icelandic but what do I know. I tried to say ‘takk fyrir’ but I think I said something like ‘bara ekki nuna Selfoss hérna’. Then she said her mom was coming during the party and I said ‘what party?’ and she pouted her lips and said ‘you guys were supposed me make breakfast and lunch and dinner and set up a party for me.’ I was going to say ‘no one ever tells me anything’ but then I remembered that there were other people in the room sleeping on the beds so I didn’t want to be loud and ended up not saying ‘no one ever tells me anything.’ Then Björk said she was leaving to get stuff for her mom and asked, ‘do you want anything?’ and I said ‘alcohol!’ with an exclamation point and she looked at me like she was trying to say ‘dork’ and then said ‘no, I’m asking Jen.’ Then more stuff happened but I woke up from the dream before Björk got back.

  I think Björk’s mom was supposed to go abroad after the party or something but that’s not really relevant and should probably be edited out.

  Back in the car I remember I found this place called Le Royal and got a room there. I nudged her and she woke up but I think she was drowsy and when she got to the suite she just passed out on the bed. I was sleepy too and I noticed someone had painted the room a caked oil paint blue.

  #

  Later when I woke up the sky was still dark with the sun busy with the other people. I didn’t know what time it was cuz I didn’t have a watch on but I wasn’t tired anymore. I never liked watches cuz they look funny on my arms. I remember when I was younger I always needed at least 8 hours of sleep and if I didn’t have an alarm clock next to me I’d sleep for 10. But I suppose that’s normal.

  I was getting worried. Like I keep waking up in thinking I’m going somewhere but it’s all the same thing and I hear these violins playing humming and shifting through Ellis’s duodenarium returning to the same note but in a different class, a different place, a different time.

  She was still sleeping so I left the hotel for a little while. I drove and it was morning and the streets were rather empty but they weren’t lonely cuz the (dead radio wave) lampposts kept them company.

  A diner at I parked my car. While I ate breakfast I read the paper again except it was a different day. I don’t remember what was in that one though. I had eggs sunny side up and toast and bacon. For breakfast I mean. I had eggs sunny side up and toast and non-Canadian bacon for breakfast and didn’t remember what was in the newspaper. With it I had a cappio too cuz they had that on the menu and cappio’s are hip but it tasted funny. Not enough coffee bean I think. I liked the cream on top though. It lay suspended in a kind of ethereal soup.

  I don’t think there is much variety between diners. At least not the ones I’ve been to. This one did have a cappio machine which was different I guess.

  I was sitting on a barstool and this guy across from me had a pad of paper. He held it in his left arm and sketched on it using a thick gray pencil. I couldn’t see what he was drawing cuz I was facing him. He would look up intermittently and study the space behind me. I think I remember being a decent artist as a kid. Like mom used to be proud of me and everything. But I haven’t done any real drawing in a while; usually I just end up blotting some geometric pattern. (binary tree)

  The other thing I remember is this older lady in a dress with I think tulips painted on. She sat and ate her toast with fork and knife which I thought was weird but maybe it was really French toast and not butter and jelly toast.

  Chapter 2.1

  No… I think I’m using too much shading. It’s too dark around the eyes, too dark. Maybe… it’s hopeless. But look at
him. He’s so sad. I’ve never seen anything like it. I should try again. I want to capture this.

  Let’s see three ninety for the French toast and leaves… three ninety from ten is… and then the orange juice, I can’t forget the orange juice. Oh I don’t know. I just hope I have enough for my medicine. I can’t forget to pick up my medicine or I’ll have complications tomorrow. And now that I’m living alone… no, I promised I wouldn’t think about that anymore.

  What’s wrong with this one?

  He doesn’t believe in ‘I think therefore I am’.

  Really… why not this time?

  It’s a little strange… something like because everyone else thinks.

  But then everyone else am’s as well, no?

  Not exactly, everyone else thinks the same. He believes the conscious dialogue going on in his head would be the same if he switched minds with another person. Perhaps ‘everyone has the same mind’ is a better way to put it, other than genetic and environmental differences of course.

  But no one has the exact same genetic and environmental makeup. Everyone is still different.

  True, but we’ve regressed from an absolute uniqueness to a practical one, which is a huge shift to him. The differences that are present might only be superficial ones that affect decision outcomes with the underlying core ‘self’ the same.

  Interesting. I haven’t seen anything like this twist before especially since it is built around an axiom that provides the ability to switch minds.

  In past instances the specimen has simply died out. However this one appears to still be functioning normally; it will be informative to observe how the mutation develops.

  Chapter 3

  By the time I got outside it was light out and I had missed the sunrise. It reminded me when I would go on vacation for a week or so as a kid and say to myself ‘this will be over soon’ and just mentally fast forward seven days like it was over before it started. It kinda scares me now that I think about it cuz you can’t go backwards. I mean time is linear like cause and effect.

  What made me think of it actually was the sun low in the sky. It wasn’t above the buildings yet but I could see it cuz I was in the middle of a street. Anyway I walked out to the asphalt lot and took out my car. I remembered also that I always used to like going on trips somewhere but I hated coming back and pulling up the driveway and seeing my old house.

  #

  When I got back to the room it was empty. I mean it had furniture but no one was in it except for me. I remember looking at the caked oil paint blue walls again and thinking they were grand. Then I saw the bathroom door was closed but there was light fanned out on the ground emanating from the crack beneath the door. I walked up to it and heard water flowing so I knocked. There was no answer. I tried the knob and it opened.

  When the door opened the bathroom was all bright with light from the fixtures in the ceiling and I could see her standing in front of me facing a mirror to my left. My eyes blinked. “Are you ok?”

  She didn’t answer. I watched her for a while. She closed her eyes and I could see her chest expand and contract as she breathed. The bathroom was white tile without any fancy designs. I think she had been crying. I hate it when they cry. It makes me think of doves.

  “Are you ok?” I said again.

  She still didn’t say anything. I was worried. I reached out and graced her arm. She had on a white shirt and a pair of jeans but of course the French would say une jean.

  “¿Qué passa? What’s the matter?” I didn’t know any Spanish but I used to read some Hemingway. My accent was probably pretty bad. Actually I don’t even know if that was Spanish cuz it might have been Italian or something and not have the upside-down question mark now that I think about it but that’s really not important.

  “I wanna go home,” she said. Her voice soft; there was a razor blade on the counter.

  “Ok.”

  I saw the razor blade and then I felt bad about fearing generic eateries so much. (she is alive)

  I turned off the water. “I’m sorry.”

  I didn’t know what else to say. I guess everyone says ‘I’m sorry’ when they don’t know what else to say. Her eyes started watering but I didn’t touch. I thought it might be too much. I remember thinking that she was a different person from me; two stone in garden. I kinda felt like doing something but I didn’t want to just play a part so there was emptiness between us like when you look up at the buildings in the skyline while someone is looking down at the street below.

  (stone in two gardens)

  And then I think she felt it too as if it was radiating from me. She looked at the ground and squeezed past me out of the room like toothpaste or something. I still couldn’t react. It didn’t seem real to me, ‘I wanna go home’… people don’t really say stuff like that do they?

  That’s not exactly right either though. At least she didn’t turn and cry on me like I was there with a Jesus complex to save her.

  I tried to keep myself busy by cleaning up what she had taken out of the medicine cabinet. I saw my eyes in the mirror and they were white like bleach. I remembered I hadn’t flossed in a while. I also remembered that I liked the taste of peppermint floss.

  I turned the water faucet to shut it off but I guess I went counterclockwise cuz more came out so I went the other way and then it was ok. When I left the bathroom she wasn’t in the bedroom anymore. I didn’t see her in the room. That was ok cuz I didn’t know what to do next anyway. I was never completely comfortable around people, people in general, not just girls. I went over to windows. I noticed the windows were locked and outside the window I could see other buildings and a street and a green payphone.

  I left the room and went out into the hall. The floor was wooden but there was a rug that covered most of the hallway. Mirrors were on the walls but some of them were chipped and the lighting was pretty dim.

  I know this is bad cuz my English teachers would always tell me to show and not to tell but out in the hall I had this feeling of emptiness. I guess the bathroom scene made me sick. Like there are cells that I’m made up of that are tiny and small but when you add them together you all you get is a big sack of tiny cells. That are dying. Anyway that’s what I felt. I wanted to move so I went downstairs to the bar. The barstools had brass buttons under the seats but the stools wouldn’t rotate when I swiveled them. The lobby was very clean but I don’t remember seeing a cleaning person. (cause & effect) The bartender asked me what I wanted. When I said nothing he looked at me funny so I said a Coke. He still looked at me funny though. Logic doesn’t fit logically sometimes.

  The bar room was kind of dark. I was sitting on a stool. A barstool I guess. This was getting me nowhere. But at least it’s not stagnation; I’m not happy. I finished my Coke. I remember that Coke was the one with the better commercials. Commercials on TV of polar bears. I wanted to get outside so I left the hotel and started walking to the right.

  #

  I remember there were pigeons on the ground everywhere. They were gray and black and white and they stared at me funny with only one eye. They would walk around and poke at food crumbs on the sidewalk.

  I walked further down the block and passed a karaoke bar and this German bakery and then there was a plaster-walled stairway leading into a building. A sandwich board in front said Loaves and Fishes Fleapit: $10.00 per guest in fancy italic lettering. I went inside to see what it was. On the walls of the stairway there was a mural of the ocean with wide-eyed flying fish and loaves of bread shaped like treasure chests on the sea floor. Towards the top of the stairs someone had put a KCFU sticker under a palm tree in the shade next to a girl with a coconut bikini top. I guess it was a popular station. Bikini is the name of an island they tested a nuke on in the pacific.

  I went up to a hole in the wall with iron bars and an old guy with a cigar and one of those transparent green poker hats on the other side. He was counting out one-dollar bills with a pencil in his ear. (blue steel America)

  �
��Hi,” I said.

  “Huh?” He looked through his cage at me with the cigar stuck up in the air at a 35-degree angle out of his mouth. “What do you want?”

  “Hi, can I get a ticket?” The guy had something written on his shirt pocket in yellow underneath a pair of overalls but I couldn’t make out what it was. Maybe it was a logo or something.

  “What? I can’t hear you. Speak up.”

  “Can I get a ticket?” But communication is supposed to be redundant. Allows for packet signal loss.

  “A ticket? 5 dollars.”

  “What? Just 5?” I was thinking it was supposed to be 10.

  “10 dollars then.”

  “Um… ok.” I held out a twenty through the bars and he grabbed it and looked at it and then put it in one of his overall’s pockets. Then he counted out ten singles and passed them to me.

  “Get in. Enjoy the show.” He started counting the singles from where he left off I think but then he got confused and maybe lost track. He put all the bills back into one pile and started counted again. Then he looked up and saw me still standing there. “What are you looking at boy? I said git!”

  “Ok, ok.”

  #

  I went through this black curtain and then there was a theatre and a play. It had already started but I don’t think I missed much. It was about that French guy with a big nose. He’s in love with this girl Roxanne but thinks he’s too ugly for her to like him. He’s a poet though. There’s this other guy Christian whom Roxanne likes. She thinks he’s good looking but Christian’s afraid to talk to her cuz he’s not a poet. Then the big nose guy volunteers to write love letters for Christian to Roxanne. After she gets the letters Roxanne falls in love with Christian for what she thinks he wrote and says I’d love you even if you were ugly. But then he gets killed and Roxanne lives in a nunnery for 14 years and promises never to fall in love with anyone else. She wore this black veil on her head to symbolize mourning. Then on the nose guy’s deathbed she finds out who really wrote all the love letters and who she’s really in love with.