Circular Motion

by Ripple Reddwoord

  She held out her hand. “Hello.”

  I took it and I knew that I wasn’t real anymore either. “Hi.”

  She smiled at me. “This way.”

  #

  We headed back into the forest. Trees on both sides. I felt drunk. I mean intoxicated. It’s weird now thinking about it because I finally did get over it but I really did think I was dead and was confused. Everything was the same and Mustardseed was there. She who had built the scenario for me to fire a gun and die. I had never shot a gun before. Besides for that Duck Hunt game for Nintendo, of course. But I couldn’t let her know that cuz I was supposed to be a cop. Or a dead cop. I think she knew I was kidding by now though. I mean lying.

  She was stepping in front of me in some kind of rhythm. Tic, toc; tic, tic; tic, toc. I couldn’t take it. I ran past her. Like Vivaldi in summer. I was running cuz I pictured this unstable torus-shaped strange attractor in my mind and at that now when I raised the gun something was thrown off which would cause a catastrophe in the future. I mean the French catastrophe. I might still have been able to fix it but I didn’t know how do then.

  I could hear the trees as she followed behind. The same tic, toc.

  #

  We came to the stream again except this time it was bigger. I didn’t notice it until I saw it because I thought the sound was just some kind of background noise. Maybe there wasn’t any sound until I saw it. The water went over some rocks and it sparkled in the light. The water sparkled in the light and left afterimages in my eyes although I couldn’t see the sun from where I was standing anymore. We couldn’t walk across it so instead there was a bridge over the stream. It wasn’t really a bridge though, it was just a log but I guess I called it a bridge cuz it reminded me of the Bridge to Terabethia. I remember reading it a long time ago. I don’t remember what it was about but I think the end was very sad and the girl she died. So it goes.

  The tree was dark brown like red wine and was knotted and had some dark green moss but it looked safe. She stepped on top of it and pushed her foot to see if it would roll. “Come on… its ok.”

  I guessed it was ok so I followed her. When I was on top of the log I looked to my left and saw the stream divide the forest into two halves. The forest was light green and wet. I blinked and the two halves were equal. The stream disappeared into mist and I couldn’t really tell if there was any sky at all. The two sides were the same. At least I thought. She told me to hurry up so I stopped looking.

  When I stepped off the log I took a long breath and closed my eyes and felt the forest and tasted the dampness of it. When I opened them again she had already paced ahead so I started down the next ridge too. She was the one that was running. Tic, tic.

  #

  Then this road came to us through the forest. It was a dirt path and it was wonderful cuz there was sunlight there. The tree branches halted on both sides of the road and they didn’t reach out and left an opening you could see the sky through. She got to the road first and turned around to check on me and then when I caught up she turned right and started running again. Out on the road I kept up with her ok. Her footsteps left tracks in the dirt.

  We weren’t very far down the road when I saw this clearing on the side of the road next to us. The clearing didn’t have any trees in it but it was darker cuz higher up branches blocked out the sky. There was a van in the clearing. I figured I’d better tell her about it. “Wait a second!”

  “What’s the matter?” She turned around to look at me and then she saw it too. The dead speak with voices as well.

  I stepped over to look at the van. It was an ice cream truck. Like when yer outside on the street playing whiffle-ball and it’s hot outside and then you hear Yankee Doodle Dandy ringing from down the street and look and see the ice cream truck coming and you run inside to get money from your mom before the truck gets away. “It’s an ice cream truck.”

  “Cool beans.” She ran behind me. “Let’s see if still it works.”

  Cool beans? She jumped up to the driver’s seat. She was more active now. She was different but nothing was new yet. That’s what I remember thinking.

  In death there was nothing new. I wanted to say something like ‘I breathed and the straw turned into a water pump’ in reference to what I had thought earlier but I couldn't.

  I went around back to see what was there. There was a door in the back of the truck and I opened it and went inside. It was rusty. The door I mean. The door was rusty. I’d never been in an ice cream truck before. “It looks pretty beat up.”

  “Ya. I think there’s still gas in it though.” I could see her in the front of the truck. She was looking at the dashboard and then she twisted under the steering wheel. She was wearing a dress that reached her ankles. “I’m gonna try to hot-wire it.”

  She was going to hot-wire the truck. Everything was wrong; everything was wrong. I remember my stomach turning upset all of the sudden like my body was sympathizing with the way I felt.

  “Cheer up, it will be ok,” I heard her say.

  “What?” How did she know about my psychosomatic situation?

  “Huh? Did you say something? I can’t hear you.”

  “Did you say something?”

  “Ya, I’m gonna try to start the truck.”

  I guess maybe I didn’t hear her correctly. I tried to calm down and went in the back.

  I didn’t understand much of what I saw in the truck. Like I saw a big freezer with a bunch of separate doors on top to get at the ice cream and a sink that didn’t have any water in it with one of those long-upside-down-hook-shaped faucets but there was some other stuff but I don’t remember exactly what. I think maybe in there was a sack or two of flour or rice or something. But it wasn’t really important. We didn’t need anything anyway. I stepped outside and walked over to the side. The ice cream truck had ‘ice cream’ written on it in a couple places but the paint was pretty faded. I wanted to paint it orange and purple and red and yellow and green and blue like in that Smashing Pumpkins video. I was wondering how she was doing with getting it started. “Any luck?”

  I heard this grating sound come from the engine. It didn’t sound too good. “Almost there.”

  She was still bent under the steering wheel. I didn’t really know what she was doing. Then the grating sound came again and then the engine went on and stayed on. “Wow.”

  I had said ‘wow’ quietly though. Then she shouted and got up from under the wheel. “Come on, let’s go.”

  I ran across the front of the truck to the other side and sat down passive in my environment. She changed gears with this big stick that was between us and we backed up onto the road and then she changed gears again and we were off. I thought it was weird that the ice cream truck worked but I guess it was fate. (death)

  Chapter 6.1

  What happened?

  Absolutely nothing. We’re on the outside.

  Chapter 7

  We were driving downhill on the dirt road. We were going pretty fast. The trees were passing us and my legs were cramped under the dashboard. I looked over at her. She was smiling and was pretty excited. “We made it.”

  “I guess so,” I said. She looked over at me and the sunlight came down between the trees again and through the window and lighted her and there was still a little mud on her ear. I remember that sometimes I would wonder what she notices about me but this wasn’t one of those times. She was driving the truck and there was a little mud on her ear and her eyes were wide open. Sometimes you just witness something wonderful and you know its truth, a direct connection not being distorted by your senses. Like when in Barcelona the guy shot the arrow into the torch and everyone in the world held their breath. I reached out and lightly touched her shoulder. “You’re...”

  She didn’t reply right away though. I pulled my hand back and left it at my side. It was then that I wondered what she notices about me. She was looking at the road ahead of us and still smiling. “Thank you.”

  It was very odd I gues
s but I was happy. Afterwards it was quiet with the noise of the truck and the tic, toc. The tic, toc made me sad again.

  #

  Then I saw him again. We were turning a bend in the road and on our left side there was a little parking lot. I could see him opening the door to this tan sedan with chrome trim with his right hand. His shirt was kinda torn and his entire body leaned back when he pulled on the handle. Then he looked up and saw me really quickly before we passed him and went down the road. “That was him.” (that was he)

  “I know. I saw him too.” She wasn’t smiling anymore. She bit her lower lip and looked in the rearview and then glanced back through the rear door window but the glass was dirty so I guess she couldn’t see very well. “Is he coming?”

  I stuck my head out the passenger window. The road behind us was empty at first but then he pulled out of the parking lot and started after us. “Ya. We’re being chased.”

  It was happening again. I didn’t mind though. It was an adventure. When I was a kid I used think there weren’t any more frontiers left and it would make me sad. Like when Jean-Luc Picard was dying and he looked at Wesley and cried and said he envied him because his adventure was just beginning and his was over but I was just sitting in bed in my room watching an episode of Star Trek on TV and there was no starship (toc, tic) I could jump on that would take me away to the stars.

  She shifted gears and the engine got louder. She looked pretty worried. The road got bumpy and I was happy and she was stressed and I needed to make her feel ok. “It’s gonna be ok.”

  We drove through a clear-cut section and there weren’t any woods around us for a second. She glanced at me. “You think?”

  “Ya. I like sour patch bears.” We were back in the woods again. She laughed at what I said and smiled at me. She seemed all right now. “You’re fetching.”

  “What?” A turn came up and she had to pull hard right. I had to grab the door handle so I wouldn’t slide over. She gave me this ‘quizzical’ look.

  “Like in that movie where this guy Tom Baxter or something is this character in a black and white film that walks off the screen into real life cuz he fell in love with a girl in the audience and then the other characters get into an argument cuz he wasn’t supposed to get off and now they don’t know what to do.” I didn’t know if she understood or not. “He thought she was fetching.”

  She smiled again. I think she understood. I put my seatbelt on so I wouldn’t have to worry about sliding over anymore.

  Then I heard a shot. I flinched and blinked maybe. I put my head out the window and looked back which I guess wasn’t very intelligent. He was still behind us and had his left hand out the window holding a chrome handgun. He shot again. His arm wasn’t keeping the gun very steady and the sunlight flashed off the chrome like Moris code between ships. Dash, Dash, Dot, Bang! Another shot. Dash, Dash, Dash. But the code sounded to me like tic, toc, tic, tic, toc of course.

  “What are you doing? Get back in here.” That was Mustardseed. I guess she was afraid I’d get shot so I put my head back in the truck. I remembered Thomas Edison named his kids Dot and Dash. We turned again, I think it was left, and then there weren’t any trees anymore. It was pretty abrupt, now there were just fields of grain. There weren’t any trees. And the sky was everywhere. “The truck’s overheating.”

  I looked over at the dashboard. One of the gauges was on a red H. H stands for hot. In France it would be C. C is for cookie. “What now?”

  “I don’t know.” We were going pretty fast and the grain blended together. I thought up some cliché with boats in a sea of grain. I looked out the window again to see if there was any more communication. He shot again. Dash, Dot, Dot. Then I looked up ahead of me and saw sticks coming out of the ground up ahead, a few seconds later they turned into a railroad crossing. The poles were being lowered. “He’s coming up on our side.”

  “What?” I looked back again and he wasn’t there.

  “He’s trying to pass us I think.”

  I looked over to my right across the sea and there was a train. All of a sudden I had this picture of us in a linear particle accelerator and the ice cream truck was the atom to be smashed. “A train’s coming. We gotta get past the tracks before it blocks us.”

  She looked ahead. Her eyes squinted and I saw that her eyebrows were a little muddy too.

  “Think we’ll make it?” I said. I could see lights flashing on one of the crossing signs. The train was pretty long, car after car after car over the horizon. The wind blew in through the window.

  “No problemo.” She stomped her foot down and I heard the engine rev up and we bolted forward. She wasn’t nervous anymore. I was excited. It was like the in movies. We were gonna get past the train just in time and leave him on the other side. Except this wasn’t acting. It was real. (death) We were getting close to the tracks. It was grand.

  Then the van choked. I heard a bang and then another explosion. We swerved left and smashed into his car and then tipped over. The van slid and she screamed and flew into the dashboard in front of her. I lurched forwards in my seatbelt but didn’t hit anything except my head against the door on the rebound.

  #

  I needed a second to think. We were lying on the truck’s left side. I couldn’t hear her move or anything. He had shot us. I had the idea that maybe he had hit one of our left tires and popped it but I wasn’t sure. Then I heard a horn, a low one like a train. I unbuckled myself and climbed up and opened my door to the sky. The train was coming and it was coming fast. The front of the truck was close enough to the tracks to get hit by the train. We weren’t in the middle like in the movies though. I dropped down into the truck again.

  “Come on!” I shook her. “We gotta get out of here.”

  She mumbled something and moved. Her forehead was bloody. “What?”

  “Train. Let’s get out of the truck.” I turned the truck’s hazard lights on and I pulled her up. She was conscious now. She looked at me quickly and I looked up towards my door and she started climbing for it. I helped her up then followed her. We were then on top of the truck and the world was shaking. I could feel the train. It was still honking. “Jump.”

  I held her and jumped down with her. When she landed I pulled her up again and she started stumbling away from the tracks. I followed her. I started out pretty calm but I was getting panicky. Maybe I wasn’t dead. Or there is death for the dead. I wasn’t 27 yet and I wanted to wait till 27 before I died like everyone else does. The wind was blowing at us already trying to suck us back towards the approaching collision. (black hole) Her dress flapping in the wind, the air currents were getting stronger and I was right behind her and I jumped on her and pulled her down. The train hit the van. I don’t remember hearing it but somehow I felt it move. I tried to shield her in case anything flew out at us. There was a fire. The truck didn’t explode on impact or anything like that but there was a fire. But then something did explode; I felt it on my back. I kept close to her for a second and then looked up at the fireball. I was amazed at how big it was. It came from the back of the truck. The entire sky was red. The train was in the background with its wheels making cascading clicks as it continued down the tracks. I was watching the fire when everything dimmed and went black.

  #

  Next I had a dream. Another real dream. But long like I haven’t had in a long time. I think the last long dream I had was about pink poodles and sci-fi and a yard and a gate. I was in a room with this guy from Star Trek in one of those tacky 60’s outfits who was standing on the ceiling. He was yelling at me ‘What floor am I on?!! What floor am I on?!!’. I wondered why he was on the ceiling. Then as if he heard my thoughts he said he was upside-down on the ceiling cuz he touched this pink monster. The only way to amend himself was to touch the monster again. Then somehow I switched places with him and I was upside-down and he was gone. I saw the pink monster. It was kinda like a poodle, sculptured rings of fur dressing its body, except it was slithering on the ground. It came
from behind a banister; I guess cuz there were stairs near it. I’m sorry if it doesn’t make much sense but that’s the way dreams are, ya know? I reached out and touched the monster and poof; I was right side up again. Then for some reason I thought that if he got me again it wouldn't be very good. I got scared. I ran downstairs. Then I think I slowed the monster down somehow, maybe I barricaded it with furniture. It was active resistance though. I got outside of the house I was in. There was a front lawn with dark green grass and a three-foot high mesh fence that blocked it off form the rest of the unknown and a gate that led out of Eden. The gate was closed but I didn’t think that maybe I could open it so I panicked again. I looked at the fence again and it turned into a wire about three feet off the ground held up by intermittent metal posts. I figured I could just duck under it. I ran towards it but I was moving very slow. Like I was in a tractor beam. I finally reached a part of the fence I wanted to get through; it was near the gate. The gate was weird and looked more like a door when I got near it. I started under the wire but I couldn't get past it. The monster was slithering closer and I was stuck under this three-foot high wire. I’m not sure if I got bigger or if the wire got lower; the observer distorts what’s being observed anyway. But I was stuck. The pink poodle/snake thing got me and then the dream ended.

  The dream I had after the ice cream truck exploded was a little different though. But I guess it was about the same thing. How much can your subconscious mind hold anyway?

  In it I saw this kid who was about 5 or 6 and his dad. “Daddy, wha’ ‘re we made ove?”

  As they spoke more and more of their surroundings became clear. (écoute et répète) They were wearing cowboy hats like cowboys used to wear and the older person had a mustache and gray hair. “Atoms, son.”

  “Wha’ ‘re atums?” They were on horses in the middle of a stream.

  “Little particles,” the dad said. He was looking at the sky. It was blue and had clouds. He seemed detached.