Circular Motion Part 9

Later, we were walking on the streets proper again. The temperature had dropped and everything had acquired a bluish tint in the moonlight like Pica.s.so. Except instead of Cabaret dancers there were posters of movies in foreign languages. I remember this one time I watched a French flick with j.a.panese subt.i.tles so I couldn't understand anything. I think it took place on the moon because there was one part where the characters looked out a window and saw the Earth all blue and strange. And there were people with pigs for heads and a crooked Eiffel Tower. A crooked Eiffel Tower and pig-headed people.

We walked past these closed coffee shops. (kissaten) I was thinking about what she said. I could only remember one time that I felt a connection to the past, when I realized John Lennon died when I was 3. I still kind of recall watching the news story on TV. I was alive at that moment. I wasn't sure if that was the kind of thing she was talking about before.

The city was quiet. There weren't any noises and there was a mist so you couldn't see very far. I think I had lost the flower already. (history) People used to think of the stars as scribes at one time. The moon glew the city and hid the scribes. Our own shuffle down the street, cobblestones echoing.

More cafes with empty chairs alone. We sat down in front of one of the closed shops and time pa.s.sed. I mean seconds pa.s.sed. Time is an abstract construction; applying a verb to it doesn't feel right. But what do I know; I watched a crumpled newspaper roll in the wind.

I wasn't alone because I was with her.

"So what now?" I said. She gazed into the dark. I guess it was more of a statement than a question though. So what now.

"It's a nice night, isn't it?" (.) She was still staring.

"Kind of cold." I was staring now too, at the cobblestones. She looked at me and put her arm around me to help keep me warm. There were a lot of them. Cobblestones I mean. There were a lot of cobblestones. "Do you have dreams?"

There was a light above us to the right; the tint from it turned everything black except for the chairs and tables, which hummed red. The moon obscured by stone masonry. "Of course."

Now that I think about it, I guess her hair was a dark red, too. Her legs swung 'toc, tic'.

"Why do you ask?"

For some reason the scene felt like dej vu. I remember thinking about when it happened to me in the past. "One time I was in Pittsburgh laying out in the gra.s.s in front of Heinz Cathedral with the sun coming down and me sans sungla.s.ses and I thought I had a dream a few nights before then about myself sitting there and got scared."

"Really?" She smiled at me and I didn't think she took me seriously. "So you dreamed about sitting in the sun without sungla.s.ses?"

"No it's not just that, I remembered the trees in a row and the building behind..." I usually don't like talking about stuff like that cuz I always feel silly afterwards. Like I'm just talking nonsense. My voice I think was defensive.

We didn't say anything for a while, lots of tic without any toc. There were lighting bugs in the street. "Why don't you write down your dreams?"

I thought maybe it was ok now. Not so silly I mean. "I tried if for a bit. But sometimes I would dream stuff that I didn't want other people to read."

"Oh." I heard something in the distance. It sounded really low frequency like a moped. "Did you have any dreams recently?"

"Sometimes I have these dreams where I'll fear the future."

"Do you fear the future because it doesn't lead anywhere or because it's too much for you to handle?"

"I guess I'm afraid of going nowhere." I was talking about the life dream.

"Oh. Of circular motion."

I was going to tell her about how I thought I was dead even though it wasn't really a dream but then the noise got louder. I stopped staring at the cobblestones and looked for it. It was coming down the road pretty fast and it had one headlight. I couldn't see anything but the light. It was blinding through the mist. It kept getting bigger and bigger until it pa.s.sed me and it took a little while for my eyes to readjust.

The motorcycle buzz faded away and it was quiet again. Soon the lightening bugs came out again. (selaphobia) Her arm wasn't on my shoulder anymore. It was gone. I couldn't remember when it had left. I looked for her to see what she was doing but the chair was empty.

I stood up and faced the darkness of the street. I remember seeing these flashes of movement deep in my peripheral visual range. When I tried to focus on them they would disappear.

I don't remember exactly what happened next but after a while I looked up and saw the light again; except it was bigger. It was the moon. It was huge. It... (give me your answer do)

Contact

The next event I recall is staring at a glossy white tabletop in a diner. I'm not sure what happened in between; maybe I got drunk or stoned or tripped up or something. I was hungry though. The place was really a truck stop, 300-pound men with baseball caps eating grease. "What can I get for you?"

It was the waitress. She had an ap.r.o.n on and her outfit looked dull in the fluorescent lighting. The menu had this eggs and sausage deal for two dollars. I didn't feel like eating meat though. "Crepes."

I guess it was odd that a trucker joint would have crpes but I liked crpes a lot so I figured I'd risk it. I remembered people p.r.o.nounced the word differently here than they do in France. "What kind of filling would you like? We have strawberry and blueberry."

"Strawberry." She wrote that down.

The waitress held her hand in the air with the pen and stared at me. "Anything to drink?"

"What kind of coffee do you have?"

"Uh... plain and decaf." She looked around the room as if it was a dumb question and she expected everyone in the joint to laugh at me.

"No hazelnut or anything?" No one laughed though. I guess they were too busy eating.

She rolled her eyes and pouted her lips and I think she was getting impatient. "No. Only regular and decaf."

"Orange juice." Orange juice is good as long as you don't drink it too often. Then it starts tasting too sweet. The waitress walked away from me.

I couldn't see the sun out the window so I guess it was cloudy outside. I was sitting at the counter waiting for my food to come when I pulled out a napkin from the dispenser and wrote a poem with a pen that was lying next to it. It was: hum, hum, hum, hum, hum along...

No, that's not right. Maybe only four hum's? Actually I think it was: A lemon yellow, A carrot green, A plumb purple, A sky gray.

I was kinda proud of it when I finished writing it.

The waitress came and dropped off the crpes and some coffee. The crpes didn't look right; they were really two omelets wrapped around a couple berries. I didn't want to eat any of it so I just sipped the coffee. I guess I should have complained about not getting any orange juice but I think I was depressed about the omelets.

I wished I had learned to smoke. She looked like an actress. The waitress I mean. Even in the uniform. I wanted to smoke something. I asked her for a pack of matches even though I don't smoke cigarettes. "Can I get a pack of matches please?"

She had bleached blond hair and blue eyes and was as tall as I was. I think she was Irish. She tossed a pack of matches to me that had a picture of a spade and the word 'Ace' on it. "Here."

Then she went into the back to where I think they warm the food. A TV was on behind the counter. It emitted this high frequency squeal. There was a reporter on it saying something about the Army. I tried the omelet but didn't like it so I spit it out in another napkin. I think the newscaster was talking about some troops we had deployed somewhere. I glanced at the guy next to me and saw a fly in the air. Maybe I should join the Army and shoot at people.

After I finished my drink I didn't know what to do. I wondered what other people do when they don't know what to do. Maybe they read. I decided to at least go outside. (split infinity) I wrapped the matches in the poetry and put the poetry in my pocket. I left the pen on the counter next to the napkin dispenser where I found it though. Outside in the sky the clouds moved like spiders. (haiku) (revolutions start with one man) I went to California once. Silicon is kind of halfway between a conductor and an insulator. (everyone is equal) is what they teach you in school But no one's really innocent. Something about Hamlet. Evil ancestors with Sundays spent in leisure. (made in Italy) Blood through capsulated veins.

Nine lives reincarnated as myself in a strange attractor of a dharmachakra. (one stone sinking in ocean) What the h.e.l.l am I supposed to do if I don't like any of the paths in front of me? (need to shave more often) Do nothing and wait around for some kind of miracle?

I think (write) the coffee was overkill. ()() I had to slow down. This isn't what I really think, it just a couple of emotions blown out of proportion in a phase of intellectual sloth.

I wanted to sit outside for a bit. One of the intersections I walked past had an island in the middle with steps to sit on so I crossed the street and sat down. I felt like... I remember this one time I was watching this date/party phone line service advertis.e.m.e.nt on TV. I was thinking they have all this stuff to service the needs of people. But I kept wondering why there weren't any ads on TV for the insecurities I have about life. Like what's wrong with me?

On the island I heard circus music in the background, whistles and horns and stuff. I think it was coming from a speaker somewhere. There was a statue on one side of the stairs to the right of me. It was yellow and was composed of these three sticks with heads in a circle pointing inwards.

"What will he do now?"

"Nothing."

At first I thought it was just people pa.s.sing by that were talking. But then I noticed it was coming from the statue.

"Nothing?"

"Ya, nothing. He's boring by himself. Reactor."

"Maybe we should switch. What about you, what do you think?"

The stick heads had wavy hair that blurred when I heard the voices, masked simultaneous defocus of my contacts.

"Huh?"

"Ya, why are you so quiet?"

"Oh, the Judgment of Paris." The sticks were talking. And there was circus music.

"Ah!" I couldn't take it anymore. Like what's wrong with me.

I got up and ran away from the statue. I think a car might have honked at me but I was going crazy so I didn't pay attention to it. Sometimes when I was a kid I would daydream in cla.s.s about stuff like that separate from what the teacher was saying but this was too much.

I kept picturing the stick heads moving. I didn't run very far before I got tired and had to walk. I remember pulling my hands though my hair. I think I tried to repress the experience but I kept picturing the heads moving. I couldn't turn around because I half thought they were still behind me. I was afraid they would leap out at me through the pool of blur like in those 3-D movies at Disney World. With yellow snapping beaks.

First pink poodles and now yellow sticks. Later I would get used to it but for the moment I was definitely unhinged. Something was beginning to form in my mind... I remember once when I was a kid my dad was driving me under a bridge and I saw all these people in their own cars pa.s.sing us. The revelation hit me that they all had thoughts, that they all could think and form ideas like I was. My dad also had little words going through his head like I always did. He wasn't just a robot programmed to react to my words in stock phrases and gestures. I was not the only sentient being on the planet.

Or at least I thought it was a revelation when I first felt it. It stopped affecting me the way it once did. I think I lost a part of myself over the years and never realized what the denial of solipsism truly meant. (beyond ghost in machine) But the talking heads brought it back again. And the apple picture immediately afterwards too. Like I had a second chance and my fear of random colorful objects was the key.

After walking for a while I ended up in front of an art museum. Actually it might have been a gallery but it was pretty big so I don't think so. I stepped out of the street and went upstairs to try and forget about what had just happened.

The air inside didn't feel much different. They kept an A/C on and it was just as cloudy as outside. (clear) I walked through the main lobby and headed towards some stairs. The colors were all dark browns and grays so I didn't find it very threatening. A guard stopped me as I stepped over some seal on the floor. "The museum closes in 15 minutes, sir."

"Thanks." Maybe it was Sunday so the place had to close early or something. I went on up the stairs. The guard looked at me funny. I guess I looked pretty scruffy by then so maybe that's why he was looking at me funny. There was an archway at the top of the stairs. I remember walking under the arch and looking up at it. It was made of stone.

After the arch there was a hallway whose left side had draped windows out into a back allay and whose right side comprised of doorways s.p.a.ced by paintings. The far end of the hall was arched by another curved pillar but this time it looked like marble. I didn't notice the paintings very much; they were nice but I didn't have much time and they all looked the same anyway. As I was walking down I stepped on some gum and that annoyed me. I wanted to try to calm down so I ducked into one of the side rooms and sat on a bench against one of the walls.

A couple pictures hung across from me and to my right was another window through which you could see a brick wall. (mic check) I saw a faint reflection of myself in the gla.s.s. It was really a mirror I guess. I thought I'd lost some weight; my face was pretty taunt. I closed my eyes. I kept twitching though. It couldn't just be the caffeine.

I looked around again -> !solace. There were a couple pictures of men on horses and naked women on the wall across from me. Then I saw it. There was a child's portrait propped underneath the mirror against a wall. It was on the floor really. A little girl sat with an apple in her hand. The apple was dark red. It pulsed. Then somehow I remembered I was supposed to look at the eyes. They were like mirrors too. I don't know how I knew to look in at the eyes. Maybe that's what the aliens had said in the shadows when I was a kid.

Actually looking back on it I don't know why I thought it was such a big deal anymore. I mean it's weird but... Anyway I saw this calm in those wide-open eyes. They radiated it even though I could see chips in the paint pupils. She was looking at me with her eyes. Then there was a shift. The girl looked lonely all of the sudden even though she had the apple. And then she moved within the painting like the yellow statues before.

She breathed and I stood frozen, unblinking, with paint cracks in my own eyes.

I got scared. I bolted out the door and almost fell down the stairs. I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't wanna think anymore. This isn't just a love story. And it wasn't over yet.

I decided that the best thing for me to do was to head back to school. Not school itself really but people that I knew. People that are normal and predictable and I don't have to think around.

I didn't know where my rental car was so I figured I'd take the bus. Maybe back in that parking lot with the yellow stripe. (yellow).

I remember standing on a curb with my hand stuck out calling a cab. One slowed down and pulled over farther up the street from me. I ran up to it and got in. The car was yellow, too.

At first the cab didn't move and I saw the cabdriver stare at me through his rear-view mirror. The cab smelled like ammonia. "Where to?"

"A train station."

The driver set the meter and pulled away from the curb. There was some talk radio coming out of the speakers behind me but I wasn't really paying attention. I was staring at the mesh between the front and rear compartments. It had little circles and some parts were kinda bent. After a while the driver started talking to me. "So, who are you gonna vote for?"

"What?"

"Vote for, you know, the election and everything." I could see his face in the rear-view. He had big cheeks and stubble.

"What? I don't know. I don't follow that stuff." The circles in the mesh intertwined and if you focused a little past them you could see honey combs.

"What do you mean you don't follow politics? Don't you care what happens?" I think he was scolding me.

I didn't really want to reply but I did anyway. "I'm sorry. Of course I care what happens."

He grunted. We stopped at a traffic light and a bunch of people walked in front of us. He lit a cigarette and took a long drag and then put the cigarette out when the light changed again. "It's ok. All politicians are sophists anyway. At least the ones with good writers."

He smiled at me through the mirror and I smiled back but the word sophist had made me uncomfortable. I guess he thought he had made a joke.

He pulled up to another curb. "Here we are."

I paid him the amount on the meter with the fake money. Then I opened the door and got out. I was standing in front of the train station.

I think I took Amtrak. I went up to a window and asked the girl there for a ticket. "Here you go. It's sixty-two fifty."

I gave her a wad of cash and she gave me some back. I guess I gave her too much.

"Hey, can I ask you a personal question?" She was looking at me funny. She had long wavy kinda hair and brown eyes with green in the middle of it like a supernova.

"Sure." I tried to smile.

"Are you stoned? I won't tell anyone." She got fidgety and moved her hands around pseudo-randomly. I remember reading once that adverbs are bad unless you're Dostoyevsky.

"What?"

She glanced around and then looked at a screen in front of her behind the window. "It's only that yer eyes are all red."