Circular Motion

by Ripple Reddwoord

  The crash was really gentle though. I felt a puff of air like at the optometrist and he tests you for glaucoma or something with one of his machines. Or her machines. Then I opened my eyes. I guess I shrunk cuz the moon was normal now. I couldn’t tell; there was a discontinuity which happens frequently dreams cuz there really isn’t any cause and effect. The moon had craters and there were shadows where the sun couldn’t get into. I don’t remember seeing a sun though. The ground looked like cheese so I tried eating it but it tasted like soap so I spit it out. I was waiting for blue meanies or something to come and get me but nothing happened to I just sat down and looked at the sky. I saw the earth. Maybe the earth is the sun. It was big and beautiful. Everything is the sun. I could feel it. I wanted to make a wish on the Earth-Sun cuz it was blue.

  Then when I did make a wish everything changed and I was felling down a pit. The walls were yellow and black and smeared like an anime cuz I was descending quickly. I landed softly on the bottom as if it was moving with me down the pit. But when I looked up again the hole was gone. I was in a cavern and the pit closed up without me seeing it. There wasn’t any sun but I could see anyway. There was something important about that sentence but I forget what. (stack pointer) In the cavern I still couldn’t think so I just felt like Moses in the wilderness except I was on the moon. Or in the moon. My wish was lost in the transition though. I mean I forgot what it was.

  I heard this song, ta-ra-tta-ra-ta-ta, coming from behind me down the cavern. It sounded like a little boy was singing it. I headed towards it and the sound reverberated off the cavern walls so it felt like more than one person was singing. Except it became out of sync. (mutex) It became harder to make out the pattern. Then the cavern around me turned dark and there was only an orange hue emanating from the far end of the cavern in front of me. I could only hear the orange hum. I felt like I was being observed by things hidden in the dark. The orange didn’t pulse or anything but there was fear all around me and an emptiness in the color in front of me. Eyes staring at me. (breathing) (whispering) The hum began to distort, changing frequency; the breathing and low-pitched murmurs of my captors began to overshadow it. My hands and forehead sweated; I couldn’t inhale. The orange glow became dimmer. I wanted to close my eyes and regress but something made me stop. It reminded me of back in the cabin when I shot the gun and died and then revived. Like I was being pulled again to another place. I wasn’t supposed to be here and they were trying to take me back. My eyes became squints and the voices clattered around me but I didn’t shut my eyes. I twisted my neck and I was in a pool of lead and I couldn’t resist any more when I saw one of them.

  It stopped.

  I haven’t the faintest recollection of what I saw in my own head but when I awoke I said ‘Blue M&M’s are evil.’

  What the hell is matter with me? Where did that come from? That happens every now and then; I’ll wake up with the breath of something bigger than I am on my tongue as if I was tasting part of a great unknown and then I’ll only come up with something ridiculously ridiculous. Like a Rube Goldberg machine. I felt like I was somehow being tortured for liking Heinlein’s ending of Pokadyne of Mars better than the version that was originally published.

  Job & Lot

  On top of that when I woke up I heard a version of Olde Langue Songe that sounded like it was being played on a dinky synthesizer like back in the mall but worse. At first I didn’t know what was going on so I thought I was going crazy again. But then I realized the train had stopped and the music was just the train’s way of saying it’s time to get off. It was coming out through the loudspeaker.

  I walked down the train platform towards the exit. I think at this point I started to think maybe I wasn’t dead. I mean, I was just walking down a passage like a normal human would; there wasn’t anything special about it all. And all the weird stuff that happened to me began to fade from my memory. But sleeping always had that effect on me. It’s like lithium bicarbonate and makes everything seem better all of the sudden. I remember this one time I fell in love with this girl that I met one weekend but she was going out west and I couldn’t go with her so I was depressed. Then I slept on it and in the morning it seemed perfectly logical to me that she would fly every week or so to visit a guy she only knew for two days.

  By this time I was out of the train station so I took another cab to college. I still had a decent amount of fake money with me. In the taxi I started thinking about how if I wasn’t really dead then I might still be right about everything stopping when you died. Every time I think of stuff like that I get really sad. Another infinite sadness I guess. The cab driver tried to talk to me. “So where are you coming from?”

  “Huh?” But thinking of death was making me feel detached. Like the cabdriver was on the outside and he wasn’t real.

  “Where are you coming from?”

  I didn’t say anything. Whenever I feel the detachment I don’t want to interact with anybody. It’s not really a feeling of aware or anything like that, it’s about…

  “Well if you don’t want to talk why don’t you just say so?”

  I remember one time I had a dream that I was a kid again riding my bicycle. I remembered how happy I felt. And then when I woke up I realized that I the most I could ever hope for from the rest of my life was to be a kid again riding my bike.

  That’s what it’s about.

  #

  When I reached my apartment the security guard wouldn’t let me in because I didn’t have my key or ID or anything. I tried calling my roommates but they weren’t in. I kinda just sat in the lounge for a while staring at the couch across from me and then I figured I outta go to one of the bars and see if anyone I knew was around. The security guard didn’t look at me when I left; he was watching TV.

  The bar I went to was called Infinite Loop and was down at the end of the street and sometimes they would card you if they felt like it. I think it was supposed to be fashioned after an English pub. It had natural wood boards and brass. That night they didn’t try to card me. When you walked in the bar was on your left and there were tables all around and a counter that sold pizza and French fries in the back.

  There were a lot of people there. I remember my neck being sore when I turned it. I guess I haven’t been sleeping well lately.

  I saw one of my roommates sitting at the bar. “Henrie.”

  “Huh? Oh, what’s up?” He was about to drink something but put it down when he saw me.

  “Nothing, I just got back. I don’t have my key and the doorman wouldn’t let me in.”

  “Really? That sucks. Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t have any ID or anything.” I was standing next to him in the aisle and people kept knocking into me.

  “Ya, do you want me to get you in? I’m just about to leave.”

  “Um… Ok. If you’re finished.”

  “Ya, it’s fine.” He took a drink out of his glass and put some money down and we headed out.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?” someone said. I turned to my left and it was someone I recognized so I guess he was talking to me.

  “Hi Job, how are you?” You can read into just about everything these days. It was a friend of mine I knew from last year.

  “Pretty good, drinking a few beers, getting drunk.” He was with two girls at a table in the dark next to a lampshade that didn’t emit any light. “Sit down, will you?”

  “Sure.” I turned to Henrie who was waiting for me. “I think I’ll stay a little longer. Are you going to be back at the apartment?”

  “Ya. Here, take my key. I’ll get the guard to let me in.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Ya, no problem.”

  “Thanks.” Henrie left and I waved at him.

  #

  I sat down next to Job. We were sitting at one of those tables that come out of the wall. The two girls were on the other side. He introduced me to them. Their names were Marie and Anne. He poured some Guinness for me out of a pitcher
into a plastic cup and I drank some. “So what have you been up to?”

  “Nothing much, I just got back a couple hours ago.” I wasn’t lying.

  Marie said, “Where did ya go?”

  “I went hiking for a little bit. I like trees.”

  She thought it was funny. I could tell cuz she laughed. “Who’d you go with?”

  “I went alone. It’s nice to get away from it all for a while, ya know?” I only told a half-truth there. Anne was looking at me funny. I guess she didn’t like me very much. I remembered thinking that my hair was probably a mess.

  “Your hands and feet are mangos, you’re gonna be a genius anyway…” Job was singing again. He wasn’t a very good singer. Marie laughed. I smiled a little, too. Job looked at me and put his arm around me. “I love this guy.”

  Anne motioned for Marie to let her out of the booth. Marie moved over to the side so Anne could get out. Then Anne stood up. “I’ll be back, I just wanna go to the restroom real quick.”

  I felt like making conversation. I mean I came back here to be with people, right? “So where do you know Job from?”

  “Anne was my roommate last year and she’s in one of Jobbie’s classes this semester.”

  “Ya, Intellectual History,” spoke Job. Someone came up to us. “Hey Lot! What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting.”

  Job looked at Marie. “This guys a genius. Smartest guy on campus.”

  Marie smiled at him. “Hello.”

  “As such ignorance speaks of the ignorant,” he said. Anne came back and sat down next to Marie.

  “Hello,” she said to Lot. Anne I mean. Lot was pretty good looking actually.

  “I am but thy servant, lacking in savant as I am.”

  Job was getting annoyed. “Stop quoting Shakespeare, it’s getting annoying.”

  “Is’t not reasonable that mine own tongue speakith that which is mine own? Or hath reason in this age left the bodies of men in search of his orphaned sister religion?” Come to think of it, it was strange that Lot was talking like that. Normally he speaks normal. But then again it wasn’t like he was using iambic pentameter or anything.

  “Wow, that’s pretty deep,” Marie looked at him kinda funny. Not like Anne looked at me.

  “And to that I say ‘hey, nonney, nonney.’” I remember thinking that Keanu Reeves was horrible in Much Ado About Nothing.

  Marie moved over. “Sit down already.”

  “I fear the elements hath a visitor. Thy countenance towards me doth not match the natural unfolding of events; my reason tells me some other gremlin is at work here.” He sat down.

  “Drink something,” said Job.

  Lot never drinks. “No, I thank thee.”

  “Come on, you never drink anything.”

  “No, I shan’t ingest strange spirits voluntarily.”

  I think Job was getting drunk. I said, “Stop it, you know how he feels.”

  “Come on, the guy doesn’t even have sex and he thinks he’s better than everyone cuz of it.”

  I was pretty sure he was getting drunk. I remember back when I was bipolar I’d act drunk naturally during depression. I wanted him to stop bothering Lot. “Shut up, don’t start a row.”

  Lot was looking at the table. Job pressed him further. “Do you expect everyone to become a monk like you and give up everything?”

  “‘The grains of sand on a beach do not dream of becoming pearls’, said the walrus to the oyster.” He was almost whispering now. But I heard his koan anyway.

  “Come here you little shit!” Jobs got up and swung at him. Or at least tried to. The girls were startled at Job with their eyes opened wide.

  I grabbed him. “Come on, you’re drunk.”

  “That little shit! Just cuz he can’t get any pussy!”

  I pulled him out of the table and then out of the bar. I didn’t wanna have to take him home. “Calm down now, you’re drunk.”

  “Get the fuck off me! The little shit. The little shit.”

  I just wanted it to stop. Like to be unstuck and go somewhere else and worry about this later. I started walking him back to his place. He kept on saying stuff. He fell once and I had to pick him up and drag him for a while.

  When we finally made it back to his room I had to take the key from him and open the door cuz he couldn’t get the key in the keyhole by himself. Then there was a chair on top of his bed and I had to take it off before he could get in bed. I asked him if he wanted the light kept on but he said no so I turned it off and closed the door. Before I closed the door he said ‘thank you’.

  #

  I was really tired myself. I went back to my apartment. I live down the hall from where Lot lives. I think he’s ok. I thought I should return Henrie’s key but then I figured I should hold on to it until I get a new one so I turned on the TV and played Final Fantasy instead. I couldn’t keep myself interested in it though. After a little bit I turned it off. I’m so bad at them now. Video games I mean. When I was a kid I would play them for days straight and never want to stop. I remember when I got Zelda for Christmas I read the manual and was worried cuz the battery in the cartridge would only last for five years and maybe I wouldn’t be able to finish in time. Anyway I figured I’d go to classes tomorrow so I set my alarm clock and turned off the lamp and went to bed. I couldn’t go to sleep though.

  I looked up at the ceiling and the paint was all chipped and it reminded me of this diary I used to keep in high school. One night last year I found it again and read through it. There was this page in it where I traced out my left hand and wrote underneath:

  Please don’t forget me. I’m alone enough without being forgotten. Time’s a doorstop with the lie that one day I can pass through the portal between you and I. Everything’s everything, you just gotta be able to see it.

  I guess I was writing to whoever would read the diary some day long in the future. I thought it was funny that I ended up writing to myself.

  I remembered there were so many revelations in that diary. I had been reading Through a Universe Darkly and A Brief History of Time and The End of Physics and some book by Kip Thorne when I wrote the diary. I remember Kip taught at CalTech. I remember once I heard this lecture about how these atoms would pass through boxes-of-nothing and end up with different spin and that was a big deal cuz they couldn’t explain it. It was given by this guy that wore sandals. I remember thinking he looked like Kermit the Frog. I couldn’t understand what the problem was though. Like sometimes I won’t be impressed with magic tricks because what happens seems natural to me.

  #

  public class SystemIdle extends Thread {

  public void run () {

  if (Me.Age < 18) then {

  Try Think(); catch (ExpERR) {

  Try Sleep(); catch (ExpERR) {

  Try Read(); catch (ExpERR)

  Watch(TV);

  }

  }

  } else {

  Try Watch(TV); catch (ExpERR) {

  Try DoWork(JobWork); catch (ExpERR) {

  Try DoWork(HomeWork); catch (ExpERR)

  PhoneCall(Friends);

  }

  }

  }

  }

  }

  #

  I don’t remember what happened next but later it was morning. When I woke up I was afraid for a second that I had overslept cuz my alarm didn’t go off but then I saw I was up 8 minutes before my clock would go off. I had this sick feeling when I woke up. I think it was because of what I was dreaming. I don’t remember what the dream was though. My memory blanks out like that a lot. Sometimes when I’m driving down the street to pick up milk from a gas station or something I’ll stare at the road and have no clue what I’m doing in the car.

  I tried to remember what I was dreaming about. I think in the dream maybe I lost something and I felt sick from that.

  I got out of bed and took my clothes off and took a shower. Then when I got back my alarm was on so I turned it off. I put my clothes on and brushed
my teeth and flossed and shaved. Sometimes when I brush my teeth my gums will bleed. I figured since I was up on time I should go to class. I hadn’t bought any textbooks yet so I just took my Borges with me.

  #

  I still had about 30 minutes before my first class so I went to the cafeteria and ate breakfast. I usually don’t have time for breakfast and that’s ok cuz I usually don’t like what they serve. I wish I could just have something simple like toast. I think I’d really enjoy breakfast if I could have toast. I remember the best breakfast I ever had was pâté and French bread and some rosé. I don’t know if they’re supposed to go together but it was good. I like rosé cuz its pink. I don’t know where I could go around here to get pâté and French bread and some rosé though.

  The lady gave me scrambled eggs and bacon. She used these tools to put them on my plate. Her arms tended to twist awkwardly and I could see her varicose veins. I sat down at a table. The tables in the cafeteria were brown and round. The room itself was fairly large and painted dark red and brown and had a salad bar on one wall and a frozen yogurt dispenser on another wall. There were ceiling fans on the ceiling but I guess that’s where they’re supposed to be. I remember there was this song about ceiling fans in a diner that Evan Dando wrote. I don’t think I ever heard it but someone told me about it once. I also remember reading in The Disappearance that ‘bloody’ comes from menstrual cycles which the British think are dirty. That book was too big. I already knew all that stuff about sexual suppression. It only got interesting after page 320 or so. I’m not sure what that has to do with anything though.

  There was a TV mounted on the wall and I watched some PBS. It was Mr. Rogers and he was talking to a cat that lived in a clock.