Notes (XV)

Marsh opened the front door, and I steeled myself.

We walked out into a hot, oppressively humid atmosphere. I took furtive glances at the plants growing near Marsh’s doorstep. Every organism out here was a potential enemy. A fly buzzed past my face and I shuddered, imagining the fell geometries it must have been tracing out as it flew, mocking with its motions my whole ambitious doomed project.

We walked along an ordinary residential street. It was searingly bright all around; I could not imagine how people could tolerate such an environment for any extended period of time. I was aware of the regularly spaced houses on both sides of me, and the separation provided me with schematic perception of their floor plans and of the location and motion of the flesh capsules inside. Potential for improved arrangement swarmed in my brain and dizzied me, but I maintained a simulation of composure and made my way along the sidewalk, for all the world like any other pedestrian.

Our ambulatory party had formed a set of three clusters. Marsh and Ken took the lead, and chatted with one another with what looked like a pleasant demeanor. I wondered what Ken had made of all of this; something told me that he and his son had gotten up to even weirder mischief together. Jenny and Kelsey formed the second group. They seemed to be talking about Kelsey’s parents. Many paces behind them, Aaron and I walked side by side.

“You’re seeing it too, aren’t you?” Aaron asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“I had a vision, or hallucination, while we were reading,” Aaron said.

“I see,” I said.

“I was on a grassy plain,” Aaron said. “It was evening, I think. The sky was dark and cloudy, but the sun hadn’t set yet. And Sally, from Chesscourt, was there.”

“I see,” I said.

“And she told me that everything I’d seen and known throughout my whole life was just grass, on this plain. But there was also a sky, above. That there was more.”

“That’s very true,” I said.

“She said that she was going to let me speak in the voice of the sky. And that people would hear my voice, and tell me that they had heard other voices. But I had to keep saying, this is the only voice. Just this one.”

“The light of the Solenoid Entity immolates,” I said.

We walked in silence.

As Marsh had said, the diner was nearby. After a single crosswalk and another half-block, we found ourselves before a big ellipse of pink neon enclosing the words “JIM’S.” Underneath, large windows showed us a brightly lit interior full of padded booths, with a big metal aisle housing a grill and the cashier’s spot.

Marsh opened the door. “Jim’s!” he called out. He jumped up and tapped the top of the doorframe before entering.

We coalesced at a salmon-colored booth near the front. My skin lapped up the air-conditioned atmosphere. Menus were distributed by a waitress who seemed to have stepped out of a cartoon about the 1950s. My sense of time was quite elastic and physical space seemed to contain more than the usual number of angles. Part of me felt like laying my head down on the table and part of me felt like spending the next 24 hours scrutinizing Jim’s for material arrangement failures. I think part of me needed very much to go to the bathroom, but a bigger part of me felt it had transcended such things entirely. I contained multitudes. I had been awake for around 60 hours.

The waitress rematerialized. I had not looked at the menu. Jenny jubilantly put in an order for some sort of burger (I believe “the works” were involved), and I sheepishly mumbled that I would have what she was having.

With no apparent prompting, Aaron stood up. “Excuse me,” he said to the waitress, “but may I speak with you for a moment?”

Her visible discomfort was only momentary; her professionalism was admirable. “Sure, honey,” she said. Aaron walked away from the booth and she followed. I hoped he wasn’t going to get himself into some sort of trouble and get us all kicked out.

“What was that about?” Ken asked. He was looking at me: appointed interpreter again.

“No idea,” I said.

Jenny was telling Kelsey she really ought to call her parents. Kelsey was pressing the point that they’d totally be able to tell she hadn’t gotten enough sleep. “Just keep the call short,” Jenny was telling her. “Say your meal has arrived.” Kelsey approved of this stratagem and pulled out a cell phone, black and covered with little pink decals of cutesy, miniature demons.

“I just wanted to say,” Marsh said out of nowhere, “that I don’t have any beef with you about any of this, Paul. It’s been a fucked-up trip, but I think you understand Aaron—better than I do, anyway—and I trust you’re handling this right. You’re a solid dude, Paul.”

One of my many parts felt charmed by this, in an uncomplicated way. I liked Marsh. I envisioned hanging out with him under better circumstances. I was pleased to be a solid dude, something I had never before been in anyone else’s estimation. (Another part of me scrutinized his eyebrows, wondering if the project of rearrangement might necessitate their removal from his face.)

After a span of time I could not for the life of me estimate, a waiter—not our original waitress—arrived with our food. Jenny bit into her burger with relish and I admired her earthy zeal. Kelsey had ordered some sort of expansive, elaborate salad. Marsh and Ken, in synch, bit into chicken wings slathered in buffalo sauce. I stared at the burger and fries before me and felt queasy. The burger’s edges quivered, mirage-like. (I had been awake for around 60 hours.) Aaron was still not back, and I was worried.

“Guys?” I said. “I’m just going to go check and see how Aaron is doing.” Nods all around. Jenny gave me a thumbs-up and a conspiratorial, ketchup-lined smile.

With a stalking gait, I made my way through the central aisle of Jim’s, taking hopefully inconspicuous glances about for Aaron and the waitress. They were nowhere to be seen. Increasingly worried, I slipped behind the cashier and through the double doors into the kitchen, where I was confronted with a whole new panorama of disarranged material. Several large men in white aprons glanced at me for the briefest moment and then went back to their tasks.

I could hear Aaron’s distinctive voice, coming from somewhere towards the far end of the room. I sidled in that direction. It became clear that Aaron was speaking from behind a curtain, perhaps separating the kitchen from employee bathrooms. With terrible, shameful, tragic cowardice, I listened and did not move:

“Cleanth Olead Cleanth Olead Slame Todd.”

It was Aaron, all right. The waitress (presumably?) was making appreciative noises.

“There is to be a great awakening.”

“Uh-hmm.”

“The command does not vary and is inescapable.”

“Y-yep. I gotcha.”

“Your contribution will make Clete sleek with quickening.”

I couldn’t take any more of this. I slunk back, across the kitchen, out into the main partition of the restaurant, and back to our table, where exhausted Spelunkers were eating up in preparation for the next journey into the Caves.

“Is Aaron all right?” Kelsey asked.

“Yes,” I said, idiotically, unconscionably.

We ate; we talked; all was well. I managed to get down a few bites of my burger and a new complacency bloomed in my brain; all of a sudden the disarrangement of material did not seem like such an immediately pressing concern. Aaron returned when the rest of us were done, and we courteously stayed to let him eat his onion rings. We left Jim’s in high spirits, feeling back on earth again, newly ready to fuck Salby up, undaunted terraneans ready for anything the underground could throw at us.

“You all right?” I asked Aaron quietly.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said. He seemed distant, abstracted, but I accepted this answer.

We had gathered in Marsh’s living room, and were ready to tell the story of Tom and Sally’s deteriorating marriage, when the phone rang.

Ken padded over to another room to answer it. From our end, the conversation consisted of a few “yeah”s followed by a few “wow”s and “shit”s. After returning to the living room, Ken explained:

“That was my buddy Josh. He called me to ask if I was watching the news. Because there was this weird story on about a multiple suicide. At Jim’s. Three of their employees climbed to the top of the water tower across the street and just jumped off? And no one knows why? And Josh knew I went to Jim’s all the time, and knew some of the staff there, so he was just thinking, you know, I should know.”

“Jesus,” Marsh said. “What a fucking weird coincidence.”