Fire
Gabriela woke in the parking deck with her backpack beside her and her trumpet in her hand. A man in a baseball cap that read “Howard's Garage” was standing over her.
“Are you, um, okay?” he asked. She blinked.
“I don't know. Yeah, I guess. Sure,” she said.
“I'm just happy you woke up.” She nodded, trying to make sense of what she heard. She sat up. He stuck out his right hand quickly, as if it was something he had been admonished to remember and almost overlooked.
“I'm Pokey Swain.”
“Oh,” said Gabriela.
“I'm Gabriela, I think.” She shook his hand and stood.
“You mean you don't know?”
“Not really. I've only been Gabriela since, well, I don't know. What's today?”
“Is today something? I guess I thought it was just today.” He stared at his feet.
“No, what's the date?” She had lost a day and a night, and now it was evening again. She left Pokey and walked down Mercy Road.
The trumpet, she remembered. The man gave me the trumpet and he died and there was- she shook her head. Fire, she thought. There was fire. There was fire and- she moaned. There was fire, and it came through my hands like spears and there was light, so much light. She staggered towards the diner. She needed to sit down. Gabriela's memory returned in flashes and fragments. She saw the morning sun on the flesh of a corpse, heard a bird sing outside, and then a flash, a shift, a change.
There was heat behind her temples, heat in her fingertips, on her lips, hot coals in her eyes, and then there was light. There was a curtain, a veil, a nebulous-halo, she thought, of gold. Gabriel, Gabriel. I was Gabriel, archangel, I was, there was fire. There was light on my bell, silver trumpet, light in my hands in my eyes in my, in my-hot silver, light on my bell. It was warm and golden but not nice not tame not human. Judgment. The seals are cracked and the bowls of Heaven's wrath poured out on the heads of the unrighteous. It was a silver trumpet in my hands, Selene, and there was a bluesy, Spanish fanfare, and there was fire.
She could see it in her mind's eye. A glow like hot metal emenated from her bell. It focused on the dead man's forehead like a laser. And there was fire, she thought. She saw it glowing like amber, like a ruby, on his brow. She smelled burning flesh, saw bone blacken and disintegrate. She saw skin melt and eyes boil beneath their lids. Fire, she thought. There was fire.
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Murray stepped out of his small, lonely apartment. He needed to go to the liquor store, but didn't want to risk running into the girl.
ReplyDeleteHe walked down the grungy stairs counting as he went.
Her
ReplyDeleteMurray stepped under the luke-warm water that was spraying from the shower head. He tried to scrub away the lingering smell of smoke and alcohol. He couldn't stop thinking about her and he knew it wasn't good. Didn't work out so well last time.
Murray collapsed onto his bed and buried his face in its tangled sheets. Rumples gingerly walked over from the opposite side of the bed and laid down so that his nose was almost touching Murray's.
He was worried. Her thin face appeared every time he shut his eyes. Pressing his palms into his eyes, Murray let out a sigh. He walked over to the window and pulled hard at the stubborn lower sash of the old wooden frame. It didn't budge. He blamed it on the humidity and flipped on the small fan in the kitchen. Then lit a cigarette in an attempt to calm his thoughts. He needed an escape. He was worried.
Macy passed a diner and considered the possibility of eating her lunch there. Through the window she saw a girl, probably in her twenties, sitting in a booth, making little movements with her mouth as if she were talking to herself. The girl looked terrified, her eyes huge with shock. A few people in the diner were giving her worried glances, but for the most part ignored her.
ReplyDelete"Maybe she is waiting for her friends like I am," Macy thought. "Maybe they abandoned her like my friends did me."
There was a sniff from beside me and I jumped. My shoulder slammed into the side of a dumpster. A girl was standing next to me. In her hand she held a trumpet. "More fall from the sky every day," she remarked with a shrug.
ReplyDeleteI rubbed my shoulder. "Yeah... Strange..." I replied as I backed away.
Backstage behind the scenes of "Henry VI part I" with Gabriela as Joan la Pucelle
ReplyDeleteHe waded through a sea of chickens.
This might've startled some people, but not him.
He didn't even notice them, at all.
He probably didnt even notice the telephone pole directly in front of him.
No, he certainly did not notice the pole, unless he likes running into things.
I can't think of any character in Shakespeare that likes running into things, can you?
That what he is, I think.
If you took every personality from Shakespeare and tossed it in a blender, the outcome would look like Geoffrey's consciousness.
or almost like it.
The original personality is in there too.
Thats me.
I'm mostly forced to the subconscious, and therefore only get to affect him while he sleeps, but I witness everything he does.
Oh bother, I'm so rude, I forgot to introduce myself.
I call myself Chris, because that is my birth-name.
I began going by Geoffrey Marlowe almost 40 years ago.
It was my stage name.
It was part Geoffrey Chaucer and part Christopher Marlowe.
Get it? I thought it was clever.
A friend of mine pointed out later that my first name was Christopher, which was Marlowe's first name as well, so I could've been clever while keeping my first name.
I said that'd be too easy.
I wish I had thought of that though.
I kinda like my name.
He's mumbling some more Shakespeare.
We're walking down the street, its not a pleasant day.
We bumped into someone,
I didnt see who,
stupid me, not paying attention.
Our view moved back up to look at the other being,
Good God thats alot of light.
it hurts our eyes.
"Fair maid, is't thou wilt do these wondrous feats?" He said.
Why'd he say that?
The person is most obviously a man, and tall and strong,
with wings.
That was odd,
the wings bit.
who has wings?
And why'd he call her a maid?
It was Reignier to Joan of arc if I remember right.
huh.
The man has a halo, I wonder if he's an angel.
I just missed whatever they were saying. drat.
stupid musings on the significance of my other personality's choice of words.
He's walking away.
And so are we.
curses.
Angels can cure the mad right? They're all chosen by God and stuff. I need to get to him, maybe he can fix me.
I don't like being broken.
"Nice playin' there! If I had a dollar, I'd throw it your way. Keep on keepin' on!" he yelled at her as he passed to go into the carnival, she didn't stop playing, but she threw him a thumbs up in response.
ReplyDeleteAs they approached the exit/entrance of the carnival, Jedadiah heard a familiar tune coming from the same trumpet player he passed on his way in.
"I recognize that song, it's one of me own!" Jed said as he started to speed up.
"All you need is love, all you need is love, all you need is love, love, love is all you need!" he started singing when he reached the player. A group of people started to gather around the duo, nothing could stop him from singing. One of the onlookers knew the song well, and added in the "She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah!" When they finished, everyone clapped and threw some money into the hat the girl had set out.
"Goddamn, that was amazing. Thanks for lettin' me sing with with yeh, it's been ages since I've done that song."
"Yeah, no, of course, you were good, man! What's your name? I'm Gabriela, by the way."
"The name's John, nice to meet ya." he said to her, then started the walk back to his house.
I waited on the roof. Waited to hear the final scream or the crunch of human bones hitting hard concrete thirteen stories below. Neither came. All I heard was the pounding of my heart in my ears and the sound of a distnat trumpet blowing a long single note. I wondered what the world was coming to.
ReplyDelete. . . AND BACK AGAIN
ReplyDelete“The Road goes ever on and on / Down from the door where it began. / Now far ahead the Road has gone, / And I must follow, if I can, / Pursuing it with eager feet, / Until it joins some larger way / Where many paths and errands meet. / And whither then? I cannot say.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
The days have been normal ones. Each day I still eat my breakfast, and each day I still make my way down to the library, though only today have I managed to write anything. The sky is still there, hanging above this forgotten city, perhaps just barely managing not to scrape the top of Wilshire Tower, but yet still managing.
It seemed when I arrived as though this were a place at the edge of the world, a stack of plates spinning on a stick on a clown’s finger. One would need only a small nudge to send everything careening down into shards of shattered china. Things didn’t fit together right here, all the patterns were wrong, and the seams were tearing. Now I know I was wrong.
The end of the world did happen, but the scenery is just the same. The sky hasn’t fallen, the tower still stands, even the carnival will outlast me, it seems. No, even I am still here.
The day after I was delirious, it’s true. I went to the library, searching in a daze. I asked the librarian if there was a book about two. She told me they had One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish if I wanted it, and asked me what I meant by all this. I told her two was important, but she didn’t listen to me. I don’t remember what else she said.
Yesterday, I finally went back to the carnival. I had tried for three days, but each time something stopped me. I saw a battered old man by the side of the road one day, a sick man coughing there the second, and on the third a wild-eyed preacher tossing sermons to the wind. Each one of these repulsed me in a way no street-side vagrants ever had before. Maybe I was scared of them, or maybe I was scared of the street they traveled on. When I looked at them I could see ten to the eighteenth water molecules in dizzying arrangement, and it was a terrifying vision. This time though, the fear did not stop me, or perhaps it drove me onward, as I went to the carnival.
Once again I stopped before the Fortune Teller’s tent and thought to step inside. Before me, the purple canvas rustled with the unknown.
In Schrodinger’s famous thought experiment a cat is placed in a box. Inside the box is a poison gas cartridge that has a perfectly even chance of going off immediately or never going off at all. The question is, before we open the box, is the cat alive or is it dead? The answer is, in equal measure, both. That is until the box is opened. Once reality is observed it cannot be undone.
The tent was another one of Schrodinger’s boxes. While I remained outside my life was still an infinite branching of quantum universes. Entering would collapse the waveform. I saw this and stumbled backwards, allowing myself to sit beneath a small tree. It was a parking lot tree, contained within its square, held steady by metal wires, but it was also the world tree, the tree from which our eons-great-grandparents descended to the African plain. It was the tree from which Eve stole an apple, and the tree under which Newton tried to nap. For a moment everything was still and clear.
Some time later, a trumpet played, heralding the end of the calm. I arose, filled with the restless energy of the well rested. Swiftly I walked down the road to my apartment, and set to work.
I toiled long that night. My only companion was the intermittent lightning. How appropriate, to be accompanied by such Promethean pyrotechnics, traditional music of the mad scientist. The crackling energy of its melody echoed my joy.
Altan stopped answering questions and ignored all comments and insults shouted his way. The only people he paid mind to were the gawkers; they were the only people showing no movement whatsoever in this mass of motion. They were almost completely immobile, and they stood out to Altan like neon signs. There was a girl with a frizzy, blond wig, a man who was overly dressed, and a girl who looked like she'd just escaped a fire. At this moment, they all embodied what Altan desired - stillness.
ReplyDeleteMaire did not loo for a new book, like the librarian suggested. Instead she made the whole library ordeal last as short as possible. As she left she realized that she needed another pack of cigarettes as she lit her last one. On the way back to Wilshire Tower she stopped in at a liquar store called D&D. She got a pack of cigarettes, but instead of turning right to go home Marie took a left. The perfect chance to explore this bleek oasis. She walked all the way around to the other side of the block where there was a playground. As she walked past she saw two figures sitting on a bench chatting. Marie stopped to light another cigarette, giving her the change to pause and observe the two figures. It looked as though one was carrying a somewhat hefty instrument. The cigarette caught the flame and Marie resumed her walk.
ReplyDeleteI opened my eyes today. Low light flooded in through the high window, for it was early evening before the sun fell. The pain was still there. The pain, ever-present since my brush with eternity, a thorn in my sanity, tormented me with its resilience. My mind, set ablaze by sin, slowly fired electrical impulses to coax my hurting body into movement.
ReplyDeleteThe clouds moved to cover the sun.
Why did these people help me? Me, with all my guilt and damnation. They hardly know me. Almost two weeks after my fall, they’ve kept me in this shelter from the Hell outside for an eternity. They told me we’re one, family, all because we believe in the same god. That’s why they help. I don’t know what I believe anymore, except for one thing.
I believe that I’m going to go outside.
Stepping out of the mosque, the light dimmed across the street ahead. Behind me, the imam’s advice reverberates into the mud. With each shift of the muck, he breathes into my ear. It’s deafening now, as the sludge flows off of the road I’m approaching. I must continue my trek. To rid myself of the pain, the voice, and the shame, I’ll embark on an odyssey.
My trial is upon me.
Forcing my feet ahead of my discomfort, I started towards the stand. The courtroom around me seemed already decided: The defendant buildings lay empty and lawyer-less to my left. The tower’s accusing gaze bored into my right side, never letting up the assault. The jury of the impoverished judged me from their shantytown, gathering on the sidewalks to observe. The spectator cars honked as the squeezed by me.
I’m going east.
The voice in my ear buzzes incessantly, but now I do not question it. Lightning cracked as the first stop on my journey drew nearer. With no watch and an ever-wandering mind suddenly all-too-focused, I’d lost track of time. But time was of no importance. It was still a day, and the selfish spin of the world still occurs every hour of every day.
It’s getting ready to stop, just for me.
A once-beautiful girl stumbled in the street, briefly blocking my advance. Stricken with hunger and confusion, her almost-empty gaze reminded me how far an angel could fall. I stopped to help her up. Without a word she moved off of my path. My eyes rose to fall again on that nearby bus stop, which I sought. A freshly posted sign told me the bus had broken down.
Mistrial. Because of this, the pain is gone now.