Twin spotlights dart in the night sky above. A line of casually dressed patrons file loosely along red velvet rope. “The old Rosebud Theater has been reopened and is playing its first film tonight.” a grey haired woman informs a curious passer by. The procession files into the cinema house.
Past the ticket booth, through the turnstiles, and down a long dark corridor to a set of doors which open into the soft disorientation of many hushed voices speaking at once. The cinema hall has been restored to its original 20th century architecture. Art deco moulding accents the ceiling in silver, black, red, and white. Behind rows of plush velvet upholstered seats an ornate crystal chandelier hangs above a concession stand and bar.
A bearded man with thick rimmed glasses walks in front of the screen and speaks over a microphone. “Uh, hello and welcome. We are glad to see you all..Reopening the Rosebud has been a monumental task that wouldn’t have been possible without the generous assistance of local community members who believed in our vision….I couldn’t think of any other town in America where this could have been possible. And here we are, so most of all thank you. Without an audience there is no show and so let’s hear it for everybody in the house tonight..” A smattering of applause works its way around the theater.
“Moving along,” he continues, “tonight’s feature film will be the first of many to be presented in reality cubed or “R3″. You won’t be needing any special glasses or head sets, just your attention please…” The sound of a reel to reel is heard and a projection appears on the screen behind him. It is an old silent film of an audience watching an old silent film about which he explains, “When audiences first witnessed the black and white image of a tunnel projected on a screen, they didn’t expect the moving image of an oncoming train, and so were terrified by its approach…” The projection shows women in fancy dress, all dead by now, jump out of their seats in fear of the projection of the oncoming train, “effectively struck by the illusion…” he narrates and someone sitting at the bar laughs loudly. “How far has cinema come? How far has the audience come?” he pauses and then exclaims, “The screen is not flat!”
A collective gasp is heard as the entire building falls to the ground as if it were a cloth backdrop. In all directions is vast empty space stretching indeterminately. He continues, “And through recent advances in hyperreal simulation we can demonstrate this for you tonight.. I assure you, this is completely safe…and we have a trained EMT on staff in case of any emergencies…” a deep metallic groan rumbles below what used to be the floor. “Ladies and gentleman, without further ado…” He says smiling and then disintegrates. The audience is left in total darkness.
Near silence a cavernous gape surrounds on all sides.
A caption appears on your-mind-become-screen:
“Late August, 1968…”
then fades as a scene takes shape.
Closeup of Jack’s bloated face as he downs scotch from a green glass bottle. Pan following his right hand tucking the bottle into his hip pocket and then reaching out the window to palm at rushing air. Rear view mirror shows dense Floridian shrubby flipping by the speeding vehicle.
Cliff is tapping at wheel in time to “Cherish is the Word“coming in over the radio and says, “that part you said about a Dionysian movement, I get that, a continuation of the same dynamics long mythologized. The titles are all placeholders for some form of universal human experience. Dionysus, the ecstatic one, the persecuted one, the hidden god who comes violent as epiphany and then departs as sudden, annihilation and rebirth.”
Jack grumbles, “If Buckley hadn’t sandbagged me with that social psychologist and hippie beatnik kid I would have had said a lot more about that. I really thought he was bringing me in for an intelligent dialogue, you know, two people talking straight.” then sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose with his forefinger.
“It’s all a sideshow to the audience you know. They want social phenomenon and only as much depth as it takes to grossly objectify it.”
“I won’t play that dog and pony show. I’m done with it! I’m ready to drop out.” Jack says and laughs.
“Outsiders can’t drop out.”
“Why sure they can. I’ll go outside of outside. I’ll become myth, less than myth, I’ll be gossip and hearsay until I’m a feature in some future film that starts right here and now!” Jack laughs.
Pan out of exhaust tail pipe as vehicle speeds around curve, rise to sky view of winding road surrounded by marsh and woodland, wind rushing, a distant cloud on the horizon forms the shape of a fetus, blur, cut, motor roar, gravel crunching, wheels gripping, Jack’s solemn head bobbing to every bump in the road, fade out…
A title screen appears:
“Dead Beat Dad”
And than scrolls upward as there comes into focus…
A single grain suspended in silence sprouting slowly and then ripening fast. The luminous stalk stands for a moment in full vitality but then the splendor is abruptly cut by a corn flakes commercial with jangling banjo accompaniment. “They won’t go soggy in milk!” an announcer exclaims in faux hillbilly accent.
Shot of truck pulling up to cabin, radio cuts off, Jack wincing in pain as he exits passenger side, lifts shirt to reveal a makeshift truss holding a Kennedy half dollar over his navel, readjusts the bandaging, and tucks his shirt back in. He takes another swig from his green flask and then follows Cliff to the porch.
The place is positioned away from the road in a pleasantly shaded plot with an open view toward the west. Seated on handwrought wooden benches the two relax, gazing outward toward a hedge of black mangroves extending past a sun baked and sloping field of wiregrass.
“You’ve got to come at this with an attention to mind set.” Cliff says and pulls out a box of animal crackers. “I don’t need the Timothy Leary lecture, Cliff.”
“I know. I’m just saying we’re taking a high dose this time and…”
Jack interrupts, “Holy is holy is holy. There’s the mind set, now let’s get on with the show.” Cliff dumps the dosed cracker menagerie into a snack bowl and the two proceed to ingest.
The scene fades to black and caption appears reading:
“eight months earlier.”
Jack is sitting in a rocking chair watching The Beverly Hillbillies. “And I ain’t budging from this rocker”, Granny Clampett says in protest. The jangling banjo and audience laughter sounds haunting, distant, plastic. A half finished bottle of Scotch rests like a baby in the crook of his arm.
There is a knock at the door but his eyes don’t leave the flicker of the television. A young woman’s voice is heard and then Jack’s wife Stella’s voice raises in agitation, “Get out of here, Shoo, Shoo!” Jack’s cousin Harvey cuts in, “But she’s family!”. After a minute of arguing Stella enters the room saying, “I told them no but they wouldn’t listen.”
“Someone is here to see you, Jack.” Harvey says. A young woman enters the room. She is thin with dark hair and blue eyes. Jack wets his throat with some more scotch and then asks, “who are you?”
“It’s me, Jan, your daughter.” she answers.
Jacks stands and looks at her intensely. He notices a bulge in Jan’s stomach and then stumbles backward to sit on a couch facing her. “So you’re the one I’ve been sending those checks to. If it’s more money you’re after…”
Jan smiles and sits beside him. Jack edges away uneasily but she reaches out and grabs his hand to compare it against her own. Jack is relaxed by the gentle touch and asks, “So what brings you all the way out here?”
“I’m passing through on my way to Mexico. I want to follow in my old man’s footsteps and hit the open road.”
“Your traveling alone to mexico?”
“With my boyfriend, John. He’s waiting outside.”
“Is that the father?” he says and takes another drink from his bottle.
Jan looks down at her stomach, “It’s that obvious, huh? No, but John and I are in love. We want to make a life together.”
“Your not still using dope are you?”
“No, none of that. I realized that I needed to get out of the city, get away from it all. It was John’s idea that we go to Mexico. You should really meet him. He’s a big fan of your work.”
“Steeeelllaaaa!” Jack hollars, “bring that boy in off the porch!”
Stella returns with a young man wearing his hair in a top knot, rolls her eyes at Jack, and then leaves the room. “Hello.” John says and extends his hand for a shake. “Ahhh? Genghis Khan?” Jack asks and laughs. John looks around awkwardly and attempts a smile.
“My daughter says your a huge fan of my work.”
“Your daughter is quite brilliant as well.”
“It must be genetics.” Jack smiles, “And now the dynasty continues…” he says and places his hand on Jan’s stomach. “Why don’t you take my last name and write yourself a novel?” Jan’s eye’s light up and she hugs him.
Here let me show you some art I’ve been working on.” Jack says and proceeds to shows them around the house, pointing out his drawings and paintings along the way. He arrives in the kitchen at a painting of underwear, “And this one I call, Memere’s Wash.” Just then, Memere rolls into the room on her wheelchair and begins to rant in French, “Viens au jardin avec le lapin et son nom est Caroline…”
Stella rushes in and tells them, “It’s time for you to leave. It’s getting late. Memere doesn’t need all this excitement.”
“Do you really mean what you said about the name?” Jan asks on her way out.
“Sure, you can go to Mexico. Use my name. Write a book.” Jack says. “Jack!” Stella shouts from inside and he swiftly closes the door.
“Animal crackers in my soup.” Jack sings merrily and pops a monkey and rabbit into his mouth at the same time. View from within Jack’s mouth looking outward, teeth chomping, tongue wagging, sunshine catching the glint of green glass flask as scotch is poured into the mix, another cracker arrives, and more chewing.
Cliff pulls his guitar out and starts picking a blue’s riff. Shot from within guitar body looking outward, strings animating their own resonance like analogue wave forms, Jack bobbing his head soulfully to the music and begins to accompany the melody with a tale. “Young Eugene was taught in church to listen to what his momma said…”
***********************
“Eugene, leave them chickens alone!” comes the voice from between kitchen curtain flaps. The lanky boy looks up from where he is hunched over a chicken in the yard. “I’m not doing nothing!”
“What did I tell you about talking back?”
Eugene takes off and hides behind the shed. His breathing is heavy as he peers around the corner to see if his mother is in pursuit. The curtains blow silent in the breeze. He sighs a breath of relief and sits down against the shed wall. Feeling around in the dirt, Eugene picks up a smooth rounded stone and rolls it around in his palm. Bruk-bruk-braaaak, a chicken clucks as it rounds the corner and stares him down. Without taking his eyes off of the chicken, Eugene silently draws his slingshot from out of his pocket and loads the stone to take aim.
The projectile lands squarely against the chicken’s head and a puff of feathers leaps into the air as its body collapses backwards. Eugene’s mouth drops wide with shock and he rushes over to the limp body to investigate. A pool of blood runs out of its mouth and he panics, gripping at his head in dismay. Looking around, Eugene notices the neighbor’s dogs packed in the field just across the way.
With tears running down his cheeks, he picks up the chicken and rushes it over to the dogs to devour the evidence. Encouraged by pack mentality, the dogs take the bait and commence tearing into the chicken with much enjoyment. The chicken suddenly reawakens as its wings are being ripped off and begins flailing with terror. The wingless body plops to the ground and is pounced upon immediately. Eugene watches helplessly as the bird jolts its head upward and attempts to cry out; throat, midway removed, gurgles forth dark and bright visions of…
***********************
“I’m starting to feel it.” Jack says and then asks, “Hey, are you feeling this?” Cliff stops strumming the guitar and then answers slowly, “Yeah….” The two sit silent for a moment as if waiting for a sign.
Cliff breaks into laughter. “What’s so funny?” Jack asks. Cliff hides his face in his hands and continues chuckling uncontrollably. When he looks back up at Jack his cheeks are flushed, pupils dilated, and a throbbing vein runs diagonal across his temple. Jack laughs too and says, “Cliff, you look like a commie pinko faggot.”
“So do you, Jack!”
“Nooo.” Jack responds with incredulity and walks into the cabin to find a mirror- bloated face contracting and expanding simultaneously, pores and black heads bleating jazz horn solos with cacophonous arrangement, receding hair line curling infinitely in place. “I look like a piece of modern art!” Jack exclaims and touches his face, then the mirror, and then both at the same time. He closes his eyes and feels the room spin.
“You ought to be careful about playing with mirrors.”
Jack opens his eyes to see Cliff, in the mirror, standing in the doorway behind him. It takes him a concerted effort to orient himself as the room is now lit by kerosene lamp and the outside world in darkness. “What the…” he says spinning around. Cliff is gone but the door remains open wide. Jack tentatively creeps his way outside. “Cliff? Hey Cliff, where’d ya go?!”
The atmosphere becomes excited by the question and a path leading away from the cabin is made to appear significant, which Jack follows after shouting, “Cliff!”, again and again. Deep into the brush he hears a rustling and a dog runs up along him from out of the shadows. “Bau-bau!” the little dog yips at his feet. Jack can see some blood caked around the animals mouth. “You’re not real…” he says to the dog and continues on his way.
“Cliff!” Jack yells.
“Bau-bau!” the little dog barks.
“Cliff!”
The dog grips at Jack’s pant leg and tugs. “Get off of me!” Jack shouts and kicks the dog away. Mid thrust he loses his balance and tumbles backwards. “Shit!” he shouts free falling, sliding, rolling, flipping, then splats flat on his stomach- a flash of red.
“Ugh…” Jack groans as he peels himself off of the black top pavement. He brushes his knees off and then lifts his shirt to check on his homemade hernia truss. The face of JFK glints back reassuringly at him and he pats it for somehow superficially saving his fall.
There is a roadside diner. It looks open and so he goes in to see if he can get some directions. The place is larger than it looks on the outside and quite busy. Jack looks around nervously, not wanting anyone to notice how fucked up he is. Jack catches the fragment of a conversation between two locals at the bar, “Show at the old theater house tonight…” He pulls a pack of Marlboro’s from his pocket, and then searches the other pocket for a lighter but finds none.
“Hey, you got a light.” Jack asks a young woman reading to herself at a table near by. “Yes, but there’s no smoking in the diner.” she answers. Jack puts the cigarettes back in his pocket and asks, “This is gonna sound a little funny, but exactly is this?”
The woman motions him to take the seat across from her. When he sits down she leans in and whispers, “This is the future, Jack.” Jack leans back and asks, “How do you know my name?” Her face is indescribable from the flowing patterns rippling under its surface and he strains to find a recognizable form.
“You forget me so soon?” she says and lifts up the book she is reading, Doctor Sax. “I always wished you would have read it to me, dad.” Her face comes into focus.
“Jan!” Jack exclaims, “what the hell is happening?”
“We are on the verge of a great transition.” she answers and her face takes on a skeletal appearance. Jack shakes his head, “No, this isn’t real. None of this is real.”
“And soon enough, everyone will come to know, exactly that…” Jan’s face recedes and becomes hazy.
Jack laughs, “This is what I was saying earlier. This is all just what I’ve been saying. It’s all like some sort of theater projection.”
Jan nods and says, “It’s a mirror.”
He sees himself in her features and reaches his hand out to touch hers, palm to palm.
“You ought to be careful about playing with mirrors.”
Jack sees Cliff, in the mirror, standing behind him in the open door. It takes him a moment to orient himself as it is now day time and he is back in the cabin. “What the…” he says spinning around. Cliff repeats, “You ought to be careful about playing with mirrors.”
“Stop saying that!” Jack shouts.
“It’s just something people say. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Didn’t mean anything? What is that supposed to mean?”
Cliff stares at him oblivious, “It’s going to be okay… Maybe just step away from the mirror.”
“What’s with you and this mirror, Cliff?”
“Jack, you’ve been standing there staring at yourself for the past fourteen minutes I think maybe you should just come back outside and get some air.”
Jack takes a deep breath and reaches out his hands to steady himself before following Cliff outside. A gust of chill air cuts through the afternoon balm. On the western horizon a storm approaches. Jack hears the sounds of organ pipes playing an arrangement he can’t quite place. “You hear that?” A wind blows through the trees. Cliff looks out toward the approaching heap of raining tumult and answers, “Yeah, I hear it.”
Thunder crackles and rolls echoing across the landscape. Jack is silent, staring solemnly into the fast moving blur of darkness. “You alright?” Cliff asks. “It’s Jan. I saw her.”
“Jan, Jan, who?”
“My daughter.”
“Jack, that’s…is that…what are you talking about?”
“I’m a dead beat dad.” Jack laughs and sighs heavily.
“Come on, man. Do you really want to be thinking like that right now?”
Rain comes in hard and fast at a diagonal so that the two are forced to edge their seats further into the porch. “I need to rewrite my will. When I die, I want it all to go to my remaining blood relatives. If I can’t provide for family in life…I’m part of a legacy you know. Without the blood…”
Cliff lights up a cigarette and hands it to Jack saying, “here you go man.” Jack takes it and Cliff lights another one for himself and then says, “Do whatever feels right, Jack. Your a generous man. You’ve given a lot to everyone. This daughter of yours, Jan, you helped give her life, get her started, gave her a last name she could use. Do you know how many Anderson’s there are out there?”
“I know all that. I just wish I could have been there for her so she wouldn’t have to struggle so much.”
“C’est la vie. Now are you ready to run out into this thunderstorm or am I going to have to drag you? Come on, let’s live a little!”
Cliff jumps into the storm and proceeds to flap his wings wildly. “Come on!” he shouts back at Jack still sitting on the porch. His movements remind Jack of the chicken being torn apart by those dogs. The shadows crawl towards him as the lights dim. An organ tune is heard and a caption appears as the image recedes to darkness:
INTERMISSION
*************
upcoming attractions..
The piston nightmare beats of street sweepers resounded symphonic through the back alley borough and dark inner hollows of some lone stranger’s skull- an anonymous shadow up against the wall. It took a step into the light of a burn barrel being surrounded by the human dregs of L.A.’s dried up urban chaoasis- standing, crumbling, madly mumbling of misfortunes and ruin. What little warmth they clang to dissipated as the stranger approached. A tweaker, his body an assemblage of worn out crevices and ragged layers soaked in bodily fluids, jumped up manically and asked, “da fuck are you?”; to no reply, stomped angrily into the shadow.
The faceless mask was unflinching against the approaching hostility. “Just let it go.” a junkie mumbled. The tweaker got within reach, and bared his toothless mouth menacingly, but then turned immediately in terror- the image of himself, his ghoulish form burned into his minds eye; he wept, “what the fuck is that thing?”
“Just let it go.” the junkie repeated. “It doesn’t mean any harm to us, just passing through.” The others looked on confused at their friend kneeling on the ground, gripping the thin strands of hair which grew disheveled from behind his ears, and moaning, “my babies!”.
The shadow walked on down the corridor towards the gaping cityscape beyond- propelled by some unspeakable motive, an all consuming drive to travel within the darkness; to embody it. There was a lightness in its shadowed movements- stealthy footsteps fell softly against shattered glass, barely cracked a shard in a near weightless state of graceful stalking.
Telepaths were remote viewing the sector as security measure for a high profile conference being held in the hills. Their collective intuition was neurologically mapped, fed back into an electronic database, cross analyzed, and displayed out for a team of analysts to read. The bulk of the content was like white noise- mundane daydreams that could be selectively tuned out of the data feed. Abnormal activity, particular to subversion, was brought to the forefront and filtered by relevancy to the occasion to provide real time tracking of premeditated threats.
There was a protest being staged by a group of youth radicals several block away from the convention hall. They were all in line with the proper civic coding for their demonstration and had enough agents (several feds) implanted in their midst to ensure tight ground control. A disgruntled former investor, waiting in his parked car just outside the event, posed the only real threat, that is, up until something entirely unexpected happened; an anomaly appeared in the readings.
“We-we’ve l-l-lost all remote s-sensing capabilities. One of our v-viewers are down and the rest are r-r-refuse to go b-back into the tanks-” came a live voice memo marked urgent. Cynthia tapped on her monitor to receive a direct video feed from the intelligence room. “What’s the status? Who’s down?” Her face appeared stone white, floating in the corner of her monitor. The man on the other end was red with tension, sweating, fumbling, “An…unkno-unidentified ob-ob-object appeared on scans and when Catherine tried to p-p-probe it she b-blacked out.”
“So…” Cynthia said calmly, cocking her head just slightly to contain he urge to panic as well, “get the heads back in their tanks. Put a block on the target and monitor the rest of the scene. We can send in some feet to investigate.”
“Th-that’s the problem, ma’am. Th-they attempted to block the target’s signal and….s-somehow…it entered into our s-system. We’re running diagnostics to t-t-try and figure out what kind of virus….”
“Virus? How could a virus send…unless it uploaded through the viewer’s minds? But that’s impossible, no one has that kind of technology…” She trailed off for a moment imaging the potential for such a thing.
“W-we aren’t sure yet. Sh-should I inform our cl-clients of the t-technical difficulty?”
Cynthia was clenching her fists, ready to punch the screen if she had to listen to this incompetent man stammer any longer. She took a deep breath to compose herself and sighed, “No…yes…yes we have to. It’s part of the contract and if we get caught breaking that…I’ll call him. I expect full report on everything as it comes in. Also, Call in Evie and have her lead the foot patrol.”
“B-b-but she r-requested-”
“Tell her to name her price than!” Cynthia shouted. There is no way we are fumbling this and she’s the only one I trust…Now go!” and turned off the monitor. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” she cursed once alone and gripped at the arms of her office chair in frustration.
The Current-C Conference was just getting under way when the call came in. “Life is precious! Your time is money! and Current-C is the future for personal investors… This most precious of all resources, human consciousness! the clock speed of our lives, can now be streamlined, to MAXIMUM POTENTIALITY!” the presenter held both his hands up as fists as he emphasized this last part. For commercial purposes and public events, he was the the face of Current-C, Jon Erwin. Everyone recognized him by his broad and optimistic smile, the gap between his teeth, and his constant use of hand gestures when speaking- the wide array of casual partners would see that this never quite turned off…
Jon was good at remembering his pitch but he could have been selling anything- in fact, his last gig he was selling “green insurance plans” to yuppies in the Bay. “Imagine, if you will, all the time you spend throughout the day, running though your mind and wasting your attention….wasting your money….when could be plugged in and generating a constant flow of income without even lifting a finger..” Jon smiled and the spotlight on him dimmed as a video screen played behind him- “I don’t even notice the advertisements anymore.” a happy member of the Current-C family says while lounging poolside of some mansion. “When you see a great commercial and you know that it was your own feedback that made it so good…it’s like you’re an artist for the whole world to see!” a flamboyantly dressed man rejoices in the middle of a crowded city street.
“With a simple investment you begin on your way to a life of total luxury and freedom. Entry level procedure allows you to make money instantly! We are a growing family and by joining our crowd sourced network of neural data miners and invested advertisers, everyone comes to benefit.” Jon narrates over top computer generated imagery of global information exchange, somehow made to look like an exciting amusement ride, with quick cuts to smiling members- their name, occupation, and Current-C level displayed below their face like a plaque of honor.
Behind the curtains, K stands arms folded and head bent towards the ground, listening to his payed representative dish out the bullshit. He was on edge by the recent activist protests, bringing to public attention some rather unpleasant implications of Current-C’s data use practices- namely, getting payed twice to lay the groundwork for a global hive mind, available to the highest bidder, for purposes beyond any ethical considerations. It wasn’t the anarchists that worried him so much as other corporations who might use this momentum of negative public attention to their advantage.
There was already talk of a hacked version being used by underground cults for their own perverse applications. It was only a matter of time before some real competition would enter this new and highly lucrative market. “I shook hands with the president of the United States.” K would remind himself in moments of uneasiness, as if this was any kind of assurance, given the current state of things.
Cynthia came in over his private line and he answered immediately, “Everything fine?” She explained the situation quickly through his ear piece. A staff member in proximity watched as K’s face turned progressively tighter in an attempt to hide his reaction. “Very well.” he finally said. “I expect you to handle this and will double your pay if we can get through the night without any trouble.” after a pause, “That is all. Goodbye.” and then looked up at the staff member watching him and tried to imitate a smile, saying, “Go replace the front door. I’m tired of looking at you.” and muttered, “incompetency”.
Hoping amid messy apartment flat, Evie hurriedly prepared for work. She was in the middle of some strange dream, difficult to recall, but seemed like it was set in the 20th century, before she was born. An old friend of hers was always going on about things like past life recall. “One is more than enough to get the idea.” she’d say but the older she got the less sure she was of anything. She was still half asleep, imagining the beach she would end up on with all the money she was about to make. He said anything, so she asked for a year’s salary in advance to her account.
While preparing a cup of espresso she checked her account to confirm that the transfer went through, complete, then drank as slow to savor the last few brief moments before risking her life one last time, sure, why not retire- the world will probably be over in the amount of time a years salary could buy. “Mmmmm..” Evie declared to herself and absorbed the heat of her espresso. It was some off brand but tasted better than anything she could find on the top shelf. Tilting her head at the bag of espresso beans and reading the text, “Luminous!” she declared in a eureka moment, realizing that the logo was an ambigram, “lumi” and then “nous” when viewed upside down.
The call came in that her escort had arrived; so she she chugged what was left of her drink and ran out the door. Evie passed some neighbors, teenage boys in the hallway, who gave her nervous looks, dressed as she was in urban paramilitary gear; so she returned with an ambiguous wink which caused them both to trip on their feet, like she’d sweeped their legs out; then chuckled to herself in amusement. The way she carried herself was enough to disarm most people by intimidation- as if they could see the horror behind her eyes, or blood on her hands- not something that could be turned off.
By sky transport she’d reach LA in just under an hour, during which time she could be debriefed on the situation, a particularly hairy one from the size of the pay bonus. On a heavily encrypted line, Cynthia personally contacted her en route to the scene. “Good evening, Evie, and thank you for agreeing to this job. As you have been informed, we are down to eyes and ears now on something that is of particular interest, a technology we’ve never seen before, and I want you to capture it. In fact, if you manage to get your hands on this thing intact, I’ll double what you’re already getting payed tonight.”
“Sounds like a really bid deal, whatever it is. Just have the geeks send me anymore info and I’ll, uh, limber up with some stretches in the cab or something.” Evie says and then closes the call to search her browser for the perfect vacation destination. Let’s see, what’s still habitable and not war torn…Below the cab on, on either horizons, some inferno was raging, difficult to tell if was human or natural. The driver switched on the radio to get a feed and Evie muted the cab’s stereo to focus on her pay off. There’s gotta be some island somewhere…. Out the window and through the air, a million miles away, serenity.
The security team was able to hack into city and private surveillance equipment, to keep a pulse on things until the telepaths were back online. It was a tedious task to take in all of the information, without a human intuition to filter out the data. Several of the viewers were downstairs helping to sort through what they could. Without the fancy tanks and helmets to aid them, they were only slightly useful to point in the right direction. All of the cameras in the area where the anomaly occurred were coming back empty. Besides an occasional bum shuffling through, there was no activity on the monitors.
“Okay, here we go, we got something!” one of the technicians called without looking away from his screen, “did anyone notice this black van parked in the abandon studio lot? It looks like there’s a meeting happening.” Several people brought up other angles of the same scene from different perspectives and the room all rushed into clusters to watch. “They’re taking something out of the back!” someone called out. “Looks like a crate!”, another. “Clear up these images and scan for any markings, I want facial recognition on everyone!” ordered the man who’d been stuttering earlier, feeling a burst of confidence to have something to work with at such high stakes. Cynthia didn’t want to say, but this was a much bigger deal than contract they’d been hired to fulfill.
The virus was untraceable, leaving the equipment operational, but unpredictable, and worse of all, “everything coming through our network is being forced uploaded onto servers around the world. It looks random and poses a very serious security risk. I would seriously recommend that we shut everything down immediately”.
“Any reading on those faces?” he asked, trying to delay pulling the plug. “Did you hear me? Everything we are doing is being broadcast around the world, including the microphones in this room….” His face turned red again, “W-w-well what d-d-d-do you w-want me to d-d-do about it!?”
“We could move to a different locations, new equipment, try and start fresh.”
“Shut everything down!” he ordered the room. “We’re moving immediately! This place is compromised and…” he looked back to his tech support.
“..and we probably shouldn’t say anything else until we are out of this room.” he finished for him and then added, “Should leave personal devices also, everything electronic on the premises has to be quarantined, to be safe…”
“You heard him, now let’s move!”
Evie was surprised to be greeted by Cynthia, in person, upon arrival in LA. “Evie, I am so glad to see you.” she said and hugged the hired assassin- stiff, stunned by the break in professionalism. “Um, is everything alright?” Evie asked.
“Shit’s really hit the fan here! I’ve got office staff acting as ground patrol at the conference, trying to find someone discreet to rent a space from, and fly in equipment from the North East…by the way, lose your device, it could be compromised.” Cynthia said and handed Evie a 2-way radio. “What the hell is this for?” Evie asked, turning the archaic model around in her hand. “It’s a non-digital radio transmitter. We’re all using them tonight. Here, let me show you how it works.” Cynthia explained and went to grab the radio, then a bright flash in the direction of the studio, and a boom; startled, Cynthia dropped the transmitter to the ground where it was jostled on, to produce a very loud feedback frequency; dogs began barking for a several mile radius as the sound of automatic machine guns punctured the night. “Shit! Shit!” Cynthia scrambled frantically to adjust the radio and then shoved it back to Evie, “It’s channel 17 and you’re team leader.” then singled into her own transmitter, “Evie just got here I’m sending her in. Over.” and turned back to Evie to explain, “You’re supposed to say ‘over’ to end your transmission.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen this in movies before. I think I get it…” she said uneasily giving up her personal device for the glorified tin can, realizing full well that she’d grown dependent on sophisticated electronics to coordinate her life in every respect. Evie sort of just stared at Cynthia for several seconds, hoping there was something else, something to go by, to know what she was up against, or if this was just another dream she was having, still asleep in her apartment, drooling on her pillow. She just gestured her head toward the smoke and gun sounds and said, “well, what am I paying you for?”
*************
The booming shutters and ground groans as plasmatic green currents course through the charging atmosphere, fast engulfing the theater, and bringing the audience back to their seats. Jack rushes into the open field to grab Cliff, “are you insane man?” he yells, barely audible over the thundering sky cracks. “Ahahaha!” Cliff laughs crazily and howls, “That’s the spirit!” The two men wrestle, spinning; slipping in the wet grass to fall contorted, limbs locking- Jack feels a pop in his stomach and looks down to see the Kennedy half dollar, which had held in his hernia, fall out of his shirt and into the mud. “Wait, no, Cliff!” he shouts but it is too late.
A deluge of intestine and guts gush out onto the grass- slick black mucus, tar, and amber- clockwork gears grinding in anguish- years of road dust and toxic consumer waste festooned with brand marketing- mark of the beast bar codes on books with his name on it- a circle of influences all splayed out in their truly imagined and parasitic form. Tape reels squirm bloody, drowning in their exposure to light. “The beginning,” cars come crashing through blue ribbons, “of the end,” atomic blast through glass “of America”.
Jack drops through the spilled out pile of himself and falls before the audience, come tumbling after him, entering into a cavernous hollow deep below the earth. In silence the scene of a grain ripening repeats to a luminous golden inflorescence; then the sound of a distant announcer talking over a scrambled microphone as a crowd begins to cheer. An electric guitar cuts in staccato against the ravenous phantoms, screaming now. Cymbals splash; a rolling drum beat breaks apart the black subterranean egg, birthing Jack into some strange and terrible ellipsis…..
Swarm song- feeder trajectories clash in polychrome- a transtemporal vortex of underlying social and genetic memories generates wet syntax- cyan sparks riddle chaotic throughout the myriad forms converging; the revelation that they have always been one. The simultaneous fulfillment of emptiness- draining out all obstruction to reveal the vessels intricate inner design- sixteen figures holding hands in a circle at the base; rising between them, an uncoiling serpent, the seventeenth.
For a moment the vision imparts a profound beatitude. Jack has forgotten himself and is at one with the audience observing his life- spectators together in a cinematic dream sequence. Meanwhile, Cliff is cast into an anti-drug propaganda film being shot under direction of Mr. Ground II- CIA code name, Bodenkontrolle. Cliff looks around confused at the camera crew and asks, “What is all this?”
“Perfect!” Mr. Ground exclaims, “catch that dazed look in his eyes, pure gold! Now, action!” A man in a clean pressed suit steps between Cliff and the camera, narrating, “We are here to present you a motion picture which we hope will give you a better insight into the terrifying sights and sounds that are many time unreal, movements often uncontrollable- things that one thinks he does while under the influence of LSD are not necessarily the same things that are actually being performed by that person. His sense of reasoning is altered, yet to one under LSD, he think that his judgment, timing, and reasoning are extraordinary; far above that of mere mortals. We are about to take you into the world of the LSD user- a world to which him is real yet as terrifying and unreal as anything imaginable…”
Cliff looks down at Jack, laying soaked and limp on the ground. The rain clouds are receding and the light of the moon casts strange shadows against his lifeless frame- pools of blood or mud? “Jack, are you alright?” Cliff asks poking him cautiously. The camera zooms in on Cliff’s face and the narrator continues, “The primal urge to kill, unlocked, murder in the highest degree. LSD can turn any man into the criminally insane.” Avant-gard Jazz rhythms are dub crescendo along to his wide eyed stare directly into the lens.
Jack awakens to the shovel sound of his grave being dug. Looking over, he sees his daughter, Jan, legs spread over the shallow grave, drop her stillborn child into the hole- landing with with a wet plop. “No!” he cries out, reaching towards the hallucination. Cliff, oblivious to the meaning of his words reassures him, “Sacrifices must be made.” and then proceeds to fill the grave. Mixolydian steel pans travel up and down improvisationally as Jack struggles to comprehend the bizarre ritual taking place before him.
“Don’t worry about it, Jack.” a woman says, slipping up behind him- standing now on a chessboard in space. The woman is Jan, transfigured now into a timeless composite of herself. “You have struggled, this battle with yourself, split, always wondering; though this is the death of you and all you hold ideal, there is no loss in vain or gain whose cost is not felt in turn. We are already dead here in the world. Extinction resolves that which does not evolve.” Dizzy Gillespie’s “A Night in Tunisia” begins to play. The house lights come on and the show is over. People leave without reading the credits. “Disgusting.” someone mutters on their way out.
-Cowan (2015)
kahoon137 