Part 17 (1/2)

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 s.p.a.cing 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 gla.s.ses 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 f.u.c.k 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 pa.s.s 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 s.h.i.+rt 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.

”ana.s.sociation := (Semaph.o.r.e 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. ”dictionaryOfSemaph.o.r.es add:ana.s.sociaion.”

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.

”aSemaph.o.r.e 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 s.p.a.ces 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 s.h.i.+rt 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 meatb.a.l.l.s 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.”