Noel Garwick
noel.garwick@gmail.com
Oct 11, 2010
Story for critique - 10-13-2010
HAP-187
If I was going to start from the beginning, I would tell you about Henry's grandfather, all of those telling things that were said that day. I would tell you about Roy, or the hurler. I would tell you about a lot of important things. But that's not how a story works. I may not be a great storyteller, but I do know a few things about not being a bad one. And you never start at the beginning.
My name is Hank Aaron Porter. Introductions are okay, by the way – we will know each other for a while, and I am going to share some personal things with you. Giving you my name is only polite. It will also make this go easier. And it's not like it would give you any further advantage over me. If you need something to picture, I have short blond hair, and dark eyes. Beneath my eyes are a pair of dark circles. I am of average height, and when I am dressed at all, I am rarely seen without the leather jacket my father gave me for my thirteenth birthday.
Like I said, we're not going to start my story at the beginning. Instead, I'm just going to jump in to when I asked, “Is this a dream?” and a voice behind me in that white void answered:
“That's the way that most of you people get here, though it's not the whole story. It just something tangential that gets the job done.”
“Tangential?” I try to get my bearings.
“Well, is a house just a group of lumber and door and paint, or is it something else entirely? If I stab you with a knife, and then replace the handle and stab you again – are you being cut by the same knife?” The voice is a presence. Not a body, but some thing. As it speaks, it moves about all directions. Occasionally, I will catch glimpses of her in between blinks. It hurts my eyes, though I don't think I'm really using them to see all of this right now. I do not like her, and I do not like 'here.'
Finally, the voice appears to me with the rest of its body. It is lightly focused, and it is Angie. She is wearing bedclothes and she is carrying a pair of shears in her left hand.
“You have been here before for a different reason. A reason for which you need to die. You are not human.”
I respond that “I doubt that you are, either.” She say that, “yes, that is technically true. I'm more of a custodian of sorts, an agent of order.”
“So you agree.”
“Not exactly. While yes, there are others out there that bend the rules, people that can move things with their thoughts, or are stronger than would be physically feasible for their bodies, or empaths and mind readers, or even the ones that control elements – those are one thing. They can bend the rules, fine, but that's to be expected. Every system has outliers, Hap. But you.. you're something else, you know that don't you? You're just a giant living middle finger to the laws of cause and effect.”
“And?”
“You can't be suffered to live. You destroy everything you touch. Logic itself breaks down.”
“That would explain why you want to kill me, but it's a lie.”
“How do you figure that one?”
“Destruction as most people think of it isn't really possible; it's an abstract. Things don't go away, they just change form.”
Angie smiles even brighter.
There is a flash of metal and my jacket has been torn at the shoulder. My shoulder. It doesn't hurt, but it does wake me up. I move backwards, leaping.
Another flash of metal and a long, thin scarlet ribbon floats through the air. There is a burning gash across my left shin. She's too fast. This time, I try to be smarter. As she raises her arm, I tuck forward and drop to the ground. She was going in for the kill, so she hits where my chest was. There is a bright flash. Apparently she has hit something else. I turn to look. It is a window, and the glass has all been blown out. Angie looks surprised. Not having expectations, I don't waste my time on expressions and instead dive through the opening.
I feel abstract. Despite this, I am most certainly sitting on a rock. The rock is very large, it is a mountain and it is known to me. There are people here visiting, cub scout troupes and families. Some are very fat. There are many children, but there is also a man. He is large, with bulging muscles. He is smiling. I watch as he grabs a child of perhaps nine years by the shoulders. Still smiling, the man picks up the boy and holds him so that their eyes are level. He then holds his arms out, holds the boy far away from him. The boy does nothing in all of this. I think he is afraid, but too afraid to know it. The man spins, first slowly, but quickly gaining speed. Eventually, he releases the boy, and the boy sails through the air. The boy finally screams. He should. He is falling to his most certain death – This rock is very high. The man's grin appears larger than ever. The man moves to another child, grabs his legs, spins and tosses him into the blue. The boy flies a respectable distance before he begins falling. The whole time, the child is screaming. The man repeats this act half a dozen times. All anyone else can do is watch. They do not understand this. Neither do I. I do not want to be here anymore, so I walk to a shack selling souvenirs. As I open the door to go inside, there is a tugging. I feel vaguely sick.
Now a man is screaming on a barren surface, the sky is black, so black, with stars punching holes like white-hot pins through the umbra canvas. I can not hear what he is saying. There are words. I know that there are. I can feel them. But I can not hear what he is saying. He is so small here, and I feel sorry for him.
This a closet. I am looking out. There is a man in a clown suit watching a boy. He will not harm him, not tonight. But he will watch him sleep. He will think of how quiet and perfect he looks in his slumber. Not like an angel, he will think. No, nothing like those creepy, eight-winged monsters. He will mutter to himself about smooth patches and the molding of images before heading down to the kitchen. He will make himself a sandwich, and the boy's mother will wonder (exasperated) why her husband never notifies her that they have run out of bacon. He will sleep in the attic. He will do this for many nights (though not every night). And I do not know if he will ever do anything more. And I do not know that he will ever be caught. And I am not sure how this makes me feel.
This place is familiar. I am really here, although here I am only eight years old. I am sitting in a chair, wooden and uncomfortable. The table in front of me is also made of a sturdy, rigid oak. It was once a tree, perhaps housing squirrels or owls or any number of things. Now it holds my plate of eggs off the floor. I like eggs. Grandpa is sitting next to me. He is old, his mind is old. Mom says that it has seen too much. The eight year old me that I am doesn't really know what that means yet, but when she told it to him, he felt concern. I like grandpa. Grandpa takes a big breath. It seems like it hard for him to breathe. I remember what is going to happen next. Grandpa pauses in the middle of a bite of toast. His eyes get very wide. “Henry,” he says, but it is in a voice almost too far for me to hear. Flakes of toast fall crumbly to his lap as he looks at me and through me. As I drop my fork and look back at him, I can't help but tremble.
“Help?” I squeeze out. But only as a question, not how I mean it.
“You can't. I need to help YOU. Conditioner. May the pattern of Fate and genetics give you a way out – a chance of grace before it damns you as it has me. Do not write your name in books. I am a prisoner inside my own mind, did you know that? I have made mistakes and this is my punishment for not being clever and quick enough to escape my judgment. Don't be like me, Henry. Be faster. Be smarter. Do not write your name in books.”
I can't say anything. My mouth is drying and I am being drawn away. I feel … I miss grandpa. I miss how he was. I feel like there is something I don't understand. But maybe I will soon.
I'm beginning to see more memories. Shadows. There is a building catching on fire so that an ambulance will arrive to tend to survivors. So that police will arrive, so that they will see me and the man that is trying to stick me for my paper. So that they will see his gun they will kill him and I will live.
There are cars crashing into each other to avoid me. Trees falling in protection, ignited gas snaking back on itself and rewriting the laws of physics itself to cradle me in an impossible womb of cold air.
This is all my fault, just by being here. These all happened because of what is wrong with me. What Angie said. I can't stand this. I keep running through windows and sewer grates, encountering more scenes of accidental deaths that stave off my own, until I find something further from myself.
I find myself in a hotel lobby. It's a very nice hotel, as I can see from the tacky geometric light fixtures and the infinitely high ceiling that surrounds this lobby and its panopticon elevator circuit. There is a janitor mopping the linoleum floor here. His name tag declares that he is Roy. “What are you cleaning up?” I ask.
“Evidence,” he says. “Life itself.”
I look closer to see that the puddle on the floor is blood. “What do you mean?”
“That's all that we are, Hank. Just evidence. Just puddles. And when I wipe this off, disperse the parts that make it itself, I will have in many ways erased the event itself. And the man that died here with it.”
I stare at my image in the puddle on the floor and reflect on Roy's words. I am not sure what to say.
“You know, Hank, I wonder what would happen to the world if you needed to understand something for it to function.”
“How so?”
“Oh you know, to drive a car, you'd need to understand the way that its combustion and axial motion and all that functions. That's what would power it, make it true. I just wonder what that kind of world would be like.”
“Maybe people would be more educated.”
“Yeah. Or maybe they would just get used to walking.”
Roy and I consider this for a moment longer.
Roy looks at me with an aged concern. “You shouldn't run like this.”
“I'm not going to run forever.”
“No,” he pauses before going back to his mopping. “You're not.”
Silence. The look on the face he is not giving me is filled with a knowing. And that knowing is an infinite sadness. Roy is different. But I can't stay here.
I leave through a set of double doors and walk out another.
Two men are talking. The one in the brown trilby hat remarks that, “Some of these are memories, you know.”
His friend with the pocket watch and waistcoat with pockets to put it in considers for a moment before responding. “Yes, but some of them are just visions. Other times and places.”
“That's what memories are.”
“I guess you're right.”
“You need to get some focus, ground yourself.”
“I get the feeling that you are having a different conversation than I am.”
“Don't be like this.”
“I know no other way.”
Now they are gone and Trish is here. I feel like I am closer to home. We are sitting on the floor of her room. The carpet is always so much more comfortable than the couch. There are posters on the wall, for bands, movies, and other such fragments of taste, and an old typewriter on her corner desk facing a window. I wish I had a typewriter in my room as I tell Trish what has happened. I say that I am afraid of what I might one day do. She looks at me and I feel calm again.
“Well, isnt that better than being afraid of doing nothing?” She tells me about her brother, what a damn slacker he is. We laugh. I feel a little more whole. Even as my vision of this scene fades, I feel a little more like me.
Now, I am somewhere familiar. The white place, where this didn't actually begin. This is what I needed to remember and why I have been here before. It is a memory, like some of the others, but this is actually the memory of a dream. This is something that was, but that never happened. He told me not to write my name in books. So when I saw my name in the book, the one lying out there in that familiar white on that oak writing desk, I tore it out. Tore out the entire page. It was not a book, that was just how I saw it. I did not tear out a page, I did something else. Something equitable. I removed... something from … something. I am not sure what. But I do know that it is important. I know it is why I am here now, running; It is why she is chasing me. It is why I am the way that I am.
I need to go home.
I have run out of road, but I feel relief. I am thinking more clearly now. I am more whole. I can discern shapes, a background. There is a floor and I can feel my feet. All is white, filled with empty, but I know my own fingers and palms. I am conscious.
“Hello, Hap,” a voice whispers into my left ear. A few moments later, a figure materializes a few yards in front of me.
It's Angie again. She is covered in red ribbons. It's an odd choice of personal decoration, but I move on. She is smirking, even in her words she is smirking. She is holding a large pair of scissors, shears almost. They gleam from an unknown light source, throwing off brilliant flares of brightness. They feel sharp to even look at.
“Well, you've finally come back to say goodbye. I guess by now you've realized the truth of the situation: I'm just more logical than you are, Hap. I'm also better at this. I'm just made for it. I can parse this world in any way I see fit, whereas you just drift. And I can use these talents to enforce my view on you.”
Angie gestures behind her. I hate her smile. I don't understand her. I only understand that she is pointing to a chalkboard. There's what appears to be a formula on the board. It is labeled HAP-187. Underneath, it says things like:
“import sys, list(life_bridge.uni) as life, time
def life(item, endtime):
timeleft = len(source_all)
if timeleft <= time.asctime():
item.flush()
item.close()
return item[exp] = 1
else:
return
while True:
life(HAP, x)”
Looking at that board makes me feel like I'm in a hall of mirrors. “Sorry, I'm not much for math.”
“It's nothing so concrete as math, Hap. It's something of a program, a design. It's a part of you.”
“And?” I need to buy some time.
“You are out of time. It's how I'm going to kill you.”
I'm starting to worry again. My fists are clenched. I stare out at my surroundings and see nothing but sky, floor, and board. All white. All nothingness. I need to get out of here, somewhere real.
“I don't understand.”
“Hap, as it is now, you are outside the system. This set of words is all I need to bind you back into a recognizable idea. Something tangible, in an abstract sort of way. I'll admit that, in the real world, this has limited applications. Here, however, well... you're screwed, Hap. I'm going to end you. Simple as that.” There was a sick smile on her face as she said that. I think it was this that really made me realize why I hate Angie.
We're what you call opposing factors. She is self-righteous, and she is a sadist. I am that I am, and I know that I hurt people just by being what I am. I admit this and try to take responsibility. We are oil and water.
“More like oil and fire; have you ever considered that I'm just more honest about my nature?” she said.
I didn't realize she could hear my thoughts. Which means she is probably hearing this right now. Damn. Maybe if I just think “banana” over and over again, I can--
“I can read you too well, Hap. In any event, this ends now.”
So I guess that's out. It must be that board.
I don't have much time to think before she decides to act. If you listen to her, Angie has many talents. Knowing her way around a blade is one of them. She lunges for me, and I step back. All I can do is retreat. I am unarmed. I realize now that, as she came at me, dancing with her blade, we were not really fighting physically. What was really occurring was a sort of clashing of ideals. I wish I had been able to learn more, that I had known I was not so helpless.
I hold up my forearm to block her knife. It scrapes against bone and I cry out in pain. My nose begins to bleed, I feel a noise, a static. This isn't normal. It's not just an arm she's cutting. It's me. All of me. I'm being erased. I'm just an idea and I'm being erased. I don't know what to do. I'm scared, I miss Trish. I will never again eat ice cream. I'm going to die alone.
And then I do. Angie is behind me, but I can feel her grin. “End of line,” she quips, and thinks she is so damn clever. She's just a shell. And I'm just an open container. The cut she makes on my throat is open and it is draining. So much blood, so much life, so much information, fleeing me like rats on a sinking ship. Remember what I said about not starting at the beginning? Well, it's also true the other way. You never end at the end. If you take it too far, every story ends in death. Of everyone. Even of you. And even of me. This is the field where I was murdered, but this is not where I died. You can not destroy something, only turn it into something else. I still exist in other forms. I am still a voice. I am still a will, and I still exist and exert myself through my story. All but death was scattered from me, but even a death is a memory.
So I live. I tell you this. For some of you, this has not happened yet. You will sense it. You will not be able to help, but you will know. There is danger in the world. There is nothing you can do about it. But still, knowing is better than not knowing. So please, spread. Head north. Even the knowledge that there is sometimes no hope is a hopeful thing in itself. Tell me, and let me die, over and over again, so that I may live. And you may, too.
