Circular Motion

by Ripple Reddwoord

  “In the same way all things are like all other things. Señor, walk through where the poster is. Pedro will loose the ability for communication after that.”

  “What?” I put my hand against the face and it went through. There was this kind of undercurrent that was slowing sucking in the rest of my arm but the poster did feel like anything. It was like the wall was just an optical illusion using mirrors or something. Except for the undercurrent. (drain)

  When I went all the way in the other side was just more tunnel. I turned around and there wasn’t a wall anymore. Where the wall should have been was just this sheared space. Like some cheesy special effect of a force field or something.

  Pedro was right; the phone went dead. I remember trying to talk into it but not hear anything come out. And then I know this is kinda lame but I think I passed out. There was a gap where I don't remember what happened. But I also was able to remember stuff from before that I forgot about until then. Another atomic swap.

  #

  First I should say that I was in a train next. Not a subway but a real train. I remember sitting at night out near green pastures on a seat brown and with slightly parted lips. I was dozing off but when I sleep I don’t shut my eyelids all the way. But I think I told you about that already. My lips had the methanol aftertaste that Gudam-Garam’s give you. I remember my throat being dry like it gets just before you start to cry and you breath in and out through your mouth to stop it from happening.

  So I was able to remember being with Mustardseed again. I think it memory because the conversation was rather natural unlike dreams. It was early morning and we just got out of a bus station. Hey, let’s get some food.

  Ok. I’ll usually just ignore my stomach and skip breakfast but I didn’t mind eating then. Where?

  I dunno. She looked across the street I guess to see if there was any place to eat. I remember thinking she had fuzz on her forearms if you looked at them in the sunlight.

  I was staring at a parking meter and the head of it would kind of jiggle slowly like Jell-O. But I didn’t think it was so weird. It’s just memory retrieval irregularity, right? Besides the meter’s base pole was fairly stationary.

  We walked farther down the boulevard and then she pointed to one of the stores. How about in there?

  It was a pastry shop with jelly filled pastries in the window. Is that legal? I mean, desert for breakfast?

  It’s ok. But it’ll make your tummy hurt later.

  And then another memory rushed back. I saw Pedro and Lot talking to each other in an empty car parking lot with yellow spacing divider paint. But Pedro was a monkey with a bright red oriental hand fan. Is he ready yet?

  Lot was a bear. Lot was big and had a bear head and stuff. He was colored black and white like a panda except instead of his tummy just being white it looked more like that yin and yang symbol. I guess he was really a panda and not a bear. He held this circuit board with ‘Made in Italy’ etched into it. Give him another day or two.

  In a little while I’ll go and meet up with him.

  Lot had a pair of those rimless prescription glasses on. They were hanging almost off the end of his bear/panda nose and with his finger he pushed them back up to where they’re supposed to be.

  And then Lot started acting weird. He opened his mouth so you could see his canines and snarled so you could see his nostrils flare. He lunged towards me or at least towards the front of my dream and slashed his paw. The slash left this afterimage like the claws had cut open a wound on a movie screen. Then bear/panda/Lot sat down with his head in his hands. He said, ‘Why the fuck did she have to sleep with me? She had to have known what it’s like; nothing is any good anymore.’ He starting ripping his face open with his claws.

  Then that scene faded to white and I recalled more back with Mustardseed looking for breakfast. Really? I dunno. I don’t know if my stomach likes me very much as it is. How about that diner?

  There was a diner across the street that looked just like the diner I went to with Mustardseed before the woods. Maybe it was the same thing.

  Back on the train I felt myself starting to lean over and pass out so I straightened up and rubbed my eyes cuz I didn’t want to start drooling on the person sitting next to me. But it didn’t work. I think I slept for like five minutes and had one of those techno dreams where you fly around in computer animation and have a 180 degree field of vision instead of the usually 120 or so you can really make out.

  After I woke I saw this girl to my left sitting farther down the train wearing this blue long sleeve cotton shirt and this black long cotton skirt. She was really pretty. If she had been a little taller she would probably be a model or something. But then she glanced at me and I had to look away cuz it’s rude to stare. I remember seeing a book on her lap about American Indians. Or Native Americans I mean.

  There was this older lady sitting next to me and she started making small talk. “aKey := Memory getKey.”

  “Ya.” I wasn’t really paying attention to her. I was thinking about the other girl. About how beautiful she was.

  “anAssociation := (Semaphore new) -> aKey.” She nodded at me and smiled so I could see her teeth. The older lady I mean. The train stopped and some more people got on and I couldn’t see the girl anymore.

  I tried to stop thinking about the girl. It wasn’t gonna get me anywhere anyway. She was like an angel. It ought to be a sin to do anything with people like that.

  The old lady was still sending messages. “dictionaryOfSemaphores add:anAssociaion.”

  I couldn’t understand what she was trying say. Maybe it was too high level for me. Then I looked across from me and I saw the girl sitting there directly in front of me. She had her hands folded on her lap on top of the book and was looking at the ground in front of her.

  “aKey become: String new.” The train stopped again and people started to clear out.

  I looked at the sign on the platform and saw it was my stop. I had to get off. I don’t remember why. I noticed a bag on my lap. It was silver like the one the red capped guy was carrying before. I stood up and held it and looked around but no one said anything. I figured it was mine now.

  When I left the train car I tried to look at the girl again but she was still staring at the floor and I couldn’t see her face.

  “aSemaphore wait.”

  I looked back at the train as it accelerated. I could hear the motors turn and push the train. After the train left there was this chirping sound like cicadas make but I think it was only coming from the power lines above the railroad tracks.

  Outside the station I remember looking up at a street lamp and seeing the light reflect off rain pellets in the air. The drops twirled and fell softly so you can see them move the way snow does. I could see the spaces between the droplets contort as each one synched in its own directions. One spiraled down rather than falling straight. Of course it hit the ground like all the others did but I saw one spiral down. So I guess it was raining but not very much.

  I stopped by a 7-Eleven. I went into the 7-Eleven because I wanted to talk to someone human. There was a girl behind the counter folding flyers in a tan collared shirt with a 7-Eleven patch. She glanced at me with hair roots black but ends auburn as I walked in and then went back to folding flyers first one crease then another. I went to the back where they keep the microwavable food and saw spaghetti with meatballs and egg sandwiches. There was a guy in another 7-Eleven uniform stacking cans of Pepsi inside a freezer. He had a green vest that read Husani. Husani means ‘hansom’ in some language I think. He grabbed the cans off a tray in two’s and stacked them on a rack in one’s.

  I asked him if I could have one of the cans. “Could I get a Pepsi?”

  He stopped stacking them and looked at me. He didn’t smile or anything. But neither did I. He took a can off the rack and gave it to me. Still warm.

  “Thanks.”

  He turned away from me and started stacking again.

  I walked back to the counter and put
the can next to the cash register. The girl stopped folding again and picked up the can with her left hand and held up a scanner in her right hand. There was a red line across the black and white barcode on the can for a second and then something beeped. She read the screen on the cash register and said, “Sixty six cents.”

  But it didn’t register right with me. I put down a dollar eight on the counter.

  The girl looked at the counter and said, “Sixty six cents.”

  “Oh.” Then I took back four cents. “Is that ok?”

  She was still looking at the counter. She didn’t say or do anything for a bit and then she just took dollar and gave me some change.

  I said thanks and smiled but she was already doing the folding again and wasn’t paying any attention to me so I just left.

  My Pepsi can had this guy in a silver jumpsuit with the word ‘Pepsiman’ written next to it. He had his right hand up in a fist like those pictures you see of Superman about to take off. I opened it and took a couple sips out of it but it was kinda warm and sticky so I threw it in the first trash I found.

  The trashcan was under a bridge so I also ended up under a bridge. There was a TV on the wall with some animation playing on it. I think it was the 'Extra’ video. The screen looked like one of those flat LCD panels and was kinda small, maybe six inches. I walked up to it and watched the video for a bit. Then all of the sudden the screen blanked for a second before changing to show an eyeball darting around the display. The iris was blue and it looked at me and I could see fluid move around and the circle halo of a contact lens. It blinked a few times and then disappeared.

  Cathedral

  Next I was with Pedro. I think the blinking eye was how I made contact with him but I don't remember Pedro having blue eyes. It was last time I was physically with Pedro. I remember walking into a concert hall. Everyone had suits and dresses on except me and Pedro cuz we were just wearing jeans. I remember the outside being hot and sticky and night so maybe it was summer. I don’t really remember the hot and sticky part but I remember the transition to the air conditioned inside so I think the outside must have been hot and sticky. Anyway inside the hall I heard Bach. Orchestral suite number 3 I think. There were strings on stage, violins and they all moved in synch. You know, the bows as they played the notes. But the cellos were so slow. It reminded me of those nature films where the speed up a plant growing. They do it to show the plant is alive but you also see the earth move as the shadows change and the dirt sifts.

  I followed Pedro and we walked down an aisle that separated the central seats that faced forwards from the wall ones that curved around the hall. It’s kinda blurry, my memory I mean, but I remember going through a door and meeting someone in a stairwell. I think the door might have been one of those emergency exits. Pedro did the talking.

  “We have it.” Pedro looked at me and I handed him the bag. The silver bag from the train. “Here.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “What mean you, ‘it’s too late’?”

  “It’s too late, we can’t use it anymore.” The other guy had a black tuxedo on. He had blond hair and would smile and show teeth that weren’t lined up straight like his orthodontist screwed up. “It’s the data, the data.”

  “What mean you, ‘the data’?”

  “You know, the bots, they were started a long time ago. Of course we wish we could have used this in the beginning, but its too late, too advanced now.” He kept looking at me even though I wasn’t saying anything.

  “But this is…” Pedro offered the bag using both hands.

  “Not needed. If we restart we’ll loose everything we’ve already built up.” The tux guy smiled at us and shook his head. He stuck his hand inside his coat and pulled out a pack of filterless Lucky Strikes. “It is funny though, how messiahs only come after their usefulness has waned.”

  “What mean you, ‘their usefulness has waned’?”

  He took a lighter and a cigarette from the pack. The lighter said ‘space lab yellow’ in lowercase letters on it. He lit the cigarette before answering Pedro. “We are almost there. Trust us on this one my friend.”

  The smoke formed a nebula in front of me. I held my breath so I wouldn’t destabilize it. It started to rotate around an axis and become tubular but then Pedro turned towards me and it went away.

  “Come, let us leave this place.” Pedro waved at the other guy with his left hand and pushed me back out of the stairwell. Then he said something like ‘banana chips’.

  “Huh?” I didn’t understand what he meant. Maybe it was really Spanish and I just thought it was English. I remember once someone told me they call Lucky Strikes ‘Lucky Strikes’ because the guy who bombed Hiroshima said ‘lucky strike’ when the nuke hit. But the brand has been around since the 20’s I think so it can’t be true, can it? (cause and effect)

  He stepped past me and we were back in the concert hall again. “He’s not one of us anymore. He has lost the faith. We are alone in our struggle now, señor.”

  "Who was that?"

  "A maestro. Pedro cannot blame him though. It’s easy to loose sight of what is important.”

  I noticed the music had changed. I couldn’t recognize it. “Pedro, what is this?”

  “This is whereby hangs a tale.” He gave me the bag back.

  “What? The music?”

  “No, the music is Pacobell.”

  “Taco Bell?”

  “No, Pacobell. It’s quite popular. Have you not heard it before?”

  I didn’t think so. Maybe in some car commercial when I was a kid. It was layered like techno music.

  #

  We walked back across the hall and exited out through one of the rear doors. Pedro sat down on the steps that led into the entrance room. It was quieter out here but I could still hear when people clapped. Pedro sat rather slumped with his head bowed looking at the floor leaning on the railing. I sat down next to him.

  “What’s the matter?”

  There was bellhop in the foyer with a red cap smoking a cigarette. Pedro stretched his legs out but didn’t answer me. I put the bag across my lap and watched the bellhop smoke for a while.

  “What do we do now?”

  Pedro shook his head. “Pedro has no answer, señor. They have us beaten out with their damnable Fabian tactics.”

  But his English didn’t sound so strange to me anymore. I was getting accustomed to it. “Is there no one else we may contact?”

  “Huh? This is probably true. But the éminence grise we believe would expect more from us than that. We must show in some way that we are worthy opponents. That our hearts are of aficionados.” Pedro looked over to where the bellhop was standing. “Do you see them? What do they say?”

  “What?”

  Pedro got up and held the stair railing. “Understanding is here that they are not present if you cannot see them. Pedro is sorry to have taken you this far only to be deterred here in such a manner. Come, we worry of this another time.”

  He went down the stairs and I followed him outside into the evening. I walked behind him to his left and when he spoke he would turn his head towards me. Out on the street there were people and trolleys and cars that would pass us. We were walking uphill towards the sea which I thought was weird. Or maybe a river. I’m not sure which one but I remember seeing signs sometimes that said we were walking towards water.

  “Tell Pedro. Tell Pedro what it is like to hear them, Jonah.”

  By then I figured out he was referring to the weird things that I’ve been seeing lately. Weird as in not normal. “It’s just weird. Like if it wasn’t for you I’d probably just think I was dreaming or my brain was drug fried or something.”

  Pedro laughed. “You are so noble. Much respect Pedro has for what you do. To resist them in such a manner. It is not a normal thing to do so.”

  I wished I asked him more about what he meant. Like how I resist them. Or how he knew about them and how he knows about me. But even now it’s very hard for me to
think about. Like when I programmed OpenGL without knowing anything about matrix vector spaces. Or built an object to SQL bridge without knowing how databases worked.

  “Oye! This way.”

  The street leveled off and to my right a river reflected the lights from the buildings on its banks. Behind me upstream two narrower rivers merged and in their delta skyscrapers. I remember seeing flashes of light like fireworks down by the water. But the flashes were parallel to the ground.

  “Pedro is sorry if it makes you uncomfortable when being asked such questions. But please understand that to us everything you see is an oracle, everything you think prophecy, señor. One day you will stop plagiarizing the works of others and say the Word yourself. One day you will realize that the Pedro and the woman are dimensionless and have no meaning.” Pedro stopped and looked down across the river. There were more flares of light. Flakes of white would bleed of the bottom of the light flashes and fall to the earth. The light shot in the same direction every time but from different places. The light shot downstream diagonally away from us and only a few grains held straight enough to reach the other bank and not fall into the water. I couldn’t hear the shots; only the leaves made noise. I guess we were too high up. “Pedro will take you to our country. Pedro will take you to our country away from all of this. Perhaps something will come to you then.”

  What Pedro really meant when he said ‘our country’ was the desert. He told me later, ‘Spanish was not the original language of our people.’ The pronouns were kinda hard to place in context but I think he used ‘our’ to mean ‘my’ like when he speaks in third person to refer to himself. So I guess his background was really Pueblo Indian or something and when he says ‘our country’ he means the land of his ancestry and not some place like Libya.

  I don’t remember the trip there very well but there are certain images in my head that I think were from the period. Like I remember standing over a boiling pot of noodles that rose up from the pot bottom in the center and spread out to the sides before going down again like the bottom of a mushroom. And this one time at night I saw a moth outside my window. My window in Pedro’s truck. Pedro’s truck this time was one of those flat front big rigs and it smelled like eggs on the inside. I guess maybe he used to eat a lot of eggs inside the truck. Anyway one night there was a moth outside my window and I remember that.