587. Stolen Hours

The ocean glittered in encore as the sun set and the moon rose. Where light from above had warmed roof and heart alike, lights within, gloaming golden and orange behind jalousied pane, twinkled life indoors, happy shadows of simple domestic bliss where bread was bread and wine was wine and gratitude for the day was served first. In concert, closing or opening act debated, the claret sky twinkled life from the watchful velvet heavens. The sight was, as it had been before and as it would be again, sublime, if one had the mind to see.

Trev didn't. He had found a small alley off a small street, a place for locals, a vista to the small harbor in the distance, a place to get lost, a place to be lost, a place, with open windows and aged wood, redolent of lore, legend and sea, of hands labored in cause, a place breathing neither need nor want, a place to get drunk. And drink he did. Drank the colors till the colors danced in his eyes and around his head and sound sat upon his head, feet kicking the top of his lobes. So he did what lost and drunk do, he drank more, his hands on the bar, rolling as if at sea, heavy his head felt, bobbing. Another glass, another lifting and down like gavel rang empty what was once full.

As coin upon coin was offered up, coin attracted what coin is wont and beside his listing was flesh firm and soft, eyes the larger in reflection, fingers twirling, a code neither secret nor discreet. He talked, the words feeling visible, objects upon a platter, notes hanging in the air, an orchestra in support of tale told. She listened, her face a pleasant mask, hiding nothing and in that nothing, nothing sincere, sincere as nothing asked, nothing wanted, beauty held, growing by the dram.

Lost, time. To lose time, to that place he sought, those hours given forth, banked in memory denied to journal, foe of pen and paper, stranger to all but strangers. She offered neither flesh nor warmth as it seemed from afar as it would seem from eye and ear witnessed, but lostness, a few hours stolen, extracted. That is what he wanted, an extractor, someone to pull from his mind an hour, an hour removed from the hours before and the hours to come. She could do this. Extract him. Her trade, skill. Worthy of the exchange, for who can buy time? Who can create time?

He nodded. She smiled. And lips were sealed to the ears that asked. "Did you find him?" asked John.

"Not hide nor hair," replied Arn as the bartender looked to the stairs. "Yet."

586. One

Into the backseat John tucked Kyra and her heavy lidded eyes. Ariel spooned into her belly, gently pulling Kyra's arms around her, a cocoon of community. Em leaned against them both. The three as kittens in a winter barn, bound by warmth, a common bond, a shared humanity beyond age or race, Hynerian and Kulmyk, together, one.

John looked behind catching one set of eyes, wide, smiling the smile of usefulness, purpose, significance. She caught his eye and in the look, father and daughter, a family, a home, a corner turned. Blond hair in a black cloak, day rising from night, convent pure, the black and white of truth not parsed, the oneness that could not be cleaved, divided, boxed or labeled. The mornings would be different now. The dawn rising breathed the transcended wind of hope.

585. Amaranthine Loyal

Kyra sat, well, actually curled more than sat, curled like a doodlebug, her cloak a shield, holding warmth within and the cold at bay. She curled not by mind but rather by design, by instinct, a sense of circling the wagons, of protecting the organs, of warmth involuting to warmth, and the thought, the thought of the comfort of fetus, of knees pulled into belly, of being covered and sustained, protected and supported, of sound muted and colors faded, all of it felt like a return, a coming home, a place safe, a place where language was left at the door and communication was known by other means.

She listened, voices familiar, warm drunk, eyes closed, tired. Her mind moved, slowly, her body, not so much. A disconnect, it felt, mind and body, one no longer in command of the other, a rebellion, a mutiny, or, perhaps, just a tiredness, a numbness to engage, to participate. Anger not, more apathy it felt, jellyfish like, a floating, boneless, a gentle lapping, shore blurry, shapes indistinct.

Still they talked, spoke, tone given and tone taken, back and forth. Matters discussed, thrown and caught and thrown back and caught and so it went, purpose unknown. She could have cared less and pondered the less in the caring, tasted it, twirled it around her mouth as hard candy, strange, the feeling, not what mom usually served. More words came, knocked and were not so much turned away as ignored, but not so much ignored as not understood. Images of standing at a window, looking out, a neighborhood child is knocking on the door, they want to play, reaching out, seeking connection and, she, just standing, watching from her window, wanting to answer the door but her feet wouldn't move, watching, they knock again, look around, then leave. She watches them go and the feeling is empty and expansive, creamy and suffocating, an odd sense of melting and drowning, not of water, not in water.

He comes, John. His large eyes, glassed with concern, sparkling in worry, say what cannot be said. His hands, strong, virile, masculine in the sense of male, male beyond gender, but male in archetype, male in fit, the square peg to her square need. They, his hands, pull her cloak taut; and, with care, fit button to loop from bottom to top, stopping to survey, as his doctor's eyes must have surveyed many times before, a look of mind racing, holding back forthrightness, replacing it with wardship.

Ariel, primrose hair coruscating in the light of the fount, stood by his side, watching as children watch, with their heart, amaranthine loyal. Her azuline eyes, deep as the watchet sky, blinked not, nor did they wavier. She held the hem of Kyra's cloak as her father lifted, her small pale fingers all the more white for the grip, holding tight without obligation, without exchange, without ledger or want or need. She held for in the holding was not skin and bone or motive or artifice, but the expression of all that is, all that was, all that would to be.

This, and not any other writ or wrote, is how it was. This was Bravo. This was Papa. This was the universal lesson taught on beach and danced on deck, delivered in smiles and wrapped in hugs.

584. The Math

"If we don't get off this planet now, she won't be the only one in a better place," said John.

"What are you talking about?" asked Von.

"It's the planet. Polaris. We were suppose to be here months ago."

"What?"

"The air. Doesn't agree with female hynerians. Nothing wrong with me or you or Trev or Rog. We weren't targeted. She was." John looked at Kyra, huddled in a pew. "Zoe, Em and Yul are just collateral damage."

"I take it you have a cure?"

"There is no cure."

"I don't believe it. There is--"

"I'm not asking you to believe it. I'm telling you."

"So they die?"

"I didn't say that."

"So?"

"We've got to get them off planet."

"And Zoe?"

"What about Zoe?"

"You think I'm just going to leave?"

"I thought you said she was in a better place?"

"Better, not best."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I'm not going anywhere without her."

John looks around. "Well, where is she?"

"Hellocks, if I knew that you think I'd be standing here?"

"Look, if we stay, they all die."

Von looked at Kyra.

"Don't go there," said John.

"It's true."

"What's true is the math."

"Math my arse. Explain to me where math is in the heart?"

John looked dumbfounded. "I don't have time for this. You coming or not?"

583. Flying Squirrel

Ariel skipped, jumped, ran to Von, launching herself like a flying squirrel into his open arms. His eyes remained locked on John's as she wrapped her small arms around his crackled neck, her little legs around the bottom of his aging ribcage. Into his stiff carriage, she whispered words unknown, which neither repeated, nor at any future time, documented. This much is known. His parched skin relaxed as leather massaged with mink oil. He smiled and his arms, once frozen, moved, lifting Ariel upward as if holding a bag of giggles. She winked, a catch in her young eye that took breath as one twirls a banner before crowd.

"Where's Zoe?" asked John.

Von looked up from knee, Ariel holding his hand, their heads on the same plane. "A better place." His words, deep, sonorous, echoed in the chapel. Scene fades to black.

582. Rusted Frozen

Von stood, somewhere between in-breath and out-breath, in the moment when the mind whirls, not in gear, neutral, spinning, faster and faster, the feeling of a drain draining, picking up speed, disappearing, the pitch, the sound, higher and higher, slipping away, threatening to break free, a nut un-tight, set free, as a fan comes loose, blades sharp, out of control.

His arms, forklift empty, rusted frozen, feeble in emptiness, uselessness, a vessel without water, a bird without wings. Palms and fingers clawed in disbelief, dry, topographical wrinkles drawn in time, deepened with labor, highlighted by worry. He blinked, with cheek as much as lid, as if in the blinking one could change slides, and in the dark of the click, the click of (slide) projector, where for an instant the room is dark, and amorous hearts beat a little faster, where there is doubt if the wheel will move back, if the slide of before will appear again, if time itself can be toyed, in that instant, a thousand images flashed, each as a coin, double sided, image and emotion, picture and feeling, each needing the other as color needed light.

Leaves fell, in his mind. Thousands of gold medallions, round as coin, the ground a golden carpet, falling, falling like lazy snowflakes, filling the sky like flock, a thousand mini suns, transparent as fragile, messengers each, story consistent, whispered on the wind, caressing the cheek and light in the hand. The image persisted as did the desire, the desire to stand under tree, feet in leaves as if in ocean, a warmth, a cleansing. His mind stuck, stuck in the image, in the idea, a dance of light, a play of neurons, apparitions of consciousness and memory. He didn't want to rake leaves, he wanted the idea of raking leaves, the peace, the solitary sounds of nature, the pungent smell of death and dying, of the relentless grinding cycle, the inevitable turning circle, to be ankle deep in truth, to be stripped of illusion, to let drop the tail of desire, an irony not lost in the lostness, a sign of trap-ness, limbo, of this world and the next, of numbers that don't add up, of colors that shift under changing light, where pain and pleasure change clothes and all of life seems a masquerade, eyes and minds moving behind static glittering facades and everything known becomes unknown and everything unknown becomes loyal and faithful and trusted.

The fount bubbled forth as it had bubbled forth before, the chaplain photograph still, his face unreadable. This is the image John saw, Em in his arms, Ariel at his feet, Kyra walking as soldiers walk in retreat, in silence, dark with rain, numb by instinct, dead to yesterday, dead to tomorrow, living in the sheltered cave of now.

__________

The chapter above was based on the following notes discovered in one of Von's journals:

--age: old like not old, but old like the urgency of gardening before the coming storm, coming it will, inevitable, still able, so not too old, but coming it is

--mind: always spinning but not always in gear; questions must be shifted, manually, to get moving, to be productive; likewise, an image, a lyric or a passage of good writing can kick the mind into gear

--psychological prisons: we never reveal all, we always hold something in reserve, what is most raw is held back like a retarded child--embarrassed we are at how little we control; we are and the "areness" is with or without us; and this "being of something other" is frightful

--leaves: I want to rake leaves, not actually, but in my mind; I want the romanticized idea of it, of the peace and beauty, the tactile feel, the earthly fragrance of death and dying and the circle

--age: rounding the circle not quite complete -- from baby to baby, only age and size to distinguish -- rounding eleven he would say, or, on a good day, maybe, ten -- either way, midnight was coming and the fear was not of the hour struck, but of the final hour -- to put bluntly, the hour where one could no longer wipe one's own arse, the hour where you starred into faces speaking gibberish, speaking baby talk and your desire was not to talk back, but to slap the shiott out of adults that should know better -- and you smile inwardly, knowing, their day was coming, that you would not be around to enjoy it lessened not the pleasure of imagining it

581. Gyro

He walked as if wearing himself, each movement shifting weight like a heavy object inside a box. Vision sharp, hearing narrow, touch blind sensitive, taste metallic bitter. The cobbled streets were still butter smooth, a dull gloss, evidence of time and shod. The shops bustled as they had bustled before, although vaguely cloaked with a strange patina of loneliness that made what looked the same feel entirely different. The gloaming without would come to match the gloaming within, the feeling such as neighbors peeking from behind curtains, fingers pointing just out of sight, whispers mouthed but not heard.

Inside, the box, his heart spun, a gyro picking up speed, slightly out of balance, faster, singing rotation, a heavy hum, a spinning beyond his hands to stop, trapped, buried, within his chest it spun, above the gut, below the throat. The street started to spin. Feeling dizzy, he sat. The bench felt warm. Bead of sweat trickled in the blue sky heat. Still he felt a chill, cold as one feels cold in fever. Taut, his skin felt; and thin. Taut and thin, brittle, such to tear if he moved too quick. Or combust under the magnifying glass sun, the cold heat burning his pale space-voyaged complexion.

His hands gripped the arms of the bench and what was still, felt as if moving, a circus ride shifting to and fro, jerking on tracks metal, wood squealing protest, a ride without known end. Colors, bodies, blurred before his starring eyes. Voices mixed with the sounds of transport and nature, of a village exhaling midday life. Hues flowed like water, like the river and he felt the rock, resisting, out of place, out of step, stupid, stubborn; and upon his stubbornness, life flowed over and around him, wearing him down, wearing him away, not with harshness, but a gentle washing, away, not of door slammed but instead, slowly, quietly shut, a rejection all the more damning in its lack of hate or anger, a cold indictment, of knowledge known to all but himself.

How was she? Where was she? Where was he? How was he? The questions stuck in his parched throat, unable to move, a hairball lodged. Still, the questions came, multiplied, mocked, each a strand, an invisible spider weaving, he the prize, dinner, caught, passive, watching, strand, question, strand, question. Tight, he felt tight, constricted, consumed, in life, in the street, but not of life, not of the street. How? Where? Why? His head spun. His head. Spider. Him. Consuming itself. Alive.

__________

As Ariel held Em's head, John stood above, caught in the moment between action done and action to be done. Em looked up. "Where's Trev?" Her voice soft such to need a gentle breeze to carry it upward.

"We don't know," said John. Seeing her exhale, chest sunken, he quickly added, "But Arn will find him. Have no doubt, he will be here soon."