[-empyre-] start of july......directions

[marc garrett]

Angela Ferraiolo wrote:
>>> 1. With the brakes chewed, their front axel pops over the planters. And
>>> with a spooling swerve they crash their van past the front porch into a mud
>>> thatched oak. (JN)
>>>
>>> 2. "Now its your turn," Whistler laughs. "I think she's good for one
>>> more." The way his left eye bulged still bothers Denim, but he knows better
>>> than to say anything, especially when Whistler is in this kind of mood. (AK)
>>>
>>> 3. But they were car poor. Such high tops, as in shoes. Not Whistler's
>>> shoes as he is shoe rich. Jeans as names and the birds, those moody fear
>>> mongers, can lift the trees, such bark heavy alarms. (JN)
>>>
>>> 4. the van's headlights screened by the mud from the oak their
>>> electric light washing over the walk the porch the house itself unlit
>>> empty the street almost stubbornly dark the moon divided the stars
>>> fracturing in the now cracked glass of the van's windshield their
>>> reflection faintly lighting shards of glass splinters of the front
>>> porch the cracked pottery of the ruined planters suburbia's uniform
>>> order cancelled now like a series of bad checks until finally the
>>> headlights went out too a door down the street opening and then
>>> slamming not followed by footsteps but only by a more complete silence
>>> the night pushing on Whistler beginning to perceive the low rush of
>>> air entering and leaving his lungs the silhouette of Denim's face a
>>> distant curve that slid lower as Whistler strained to lift his head by
>>> degrees by inches forward skyward up causing the moon to scatter
>>> deliriously across the crazed glass stretching dilating revolving and
>>> then inverting again as incapable Whistler fell back staring into
>>> shadow unable to quit listening to the now flat growing unbearable
>>> silence of the night where he could sense an approach of some kind of
>>> outcome indifferent unnameable yet as certain as dawn and he thought
>>> (af)
>>>       
>> 5...his  synth_suit. all p[l]ocked.mar[c]ked + r[l]e[i]s[ure]in bound. no
>> crash was programmed  4 this session!?
>>
>>     6. He took off the suit, and was about to write a quick complaint  to
>> the project manager, when he changed his mind and phoned her instead.
>>
>>        "Hello S ? We need a team meeting. ...I've just exited from
>> World(3)... ...The violence bug is no better but it's still not ready for
>> user testing.  Unless the
>>
>>         violence is turned down we will never be able to present  World(3)
>> as a replacement for focus groups and polling surveys which is the supposed
>>
>>         purpose...11Am.." And wondered when and if world(3) would ever be
>> ready for the clients.  (s)
>>
>>         7. ' i want 2 b emptee '
>>               sd S
>>              'emptee of vishyuns n 10shyuns
>>               n memoreez uv dreems 4 a whil
>>               so hunee what do u want from me
>>               tho we r alredee heer wer gonne put a trackr on u
>>               feel the ekstasee as it cums 4 u ... '   (if)
>>
>>     
> 8.
> then the laugh as feared as expected his voice over the cel suddenly
> amplified approaching unreasonable so that the part of herself still
> struggling with words suddenly withdrew the hotel bed shrinking the
> phone itself now useless the tracker already blinking and the
> something within her which had no need of body moving pushing out
> scanning the room's pressurized furniture nylon curtains plastic
> windows its artificial walls themselves dissolving under a moment of
> observation as placid as a child's who suspects it will be orphaned
> who has always suspected and who finally abandoned can somehow
> concentrate for minutes before making even the slightest gesture it
> was four o'clock she (af)
Sarah immerses her self into the bath, feeling more relaxed. She plays 
with the idea of what it might be like to transmute her body into water. 
Would her consciousness be diluted and dissolved by the volume of this 
splashy, h20 substance? Sarah submerges her head under the water, 
leaving her eyes open, looking up at the ceiling and then she slowly 
closes her eyes. So far we know that that if one is to be materialized 
back into human, solid - form, that we can regain our material self and 
our consciousness. Yet if one was transmuted into the form of water. 
What then?

Her mind shifts to Darnley, perhaps he's an agent, and his motives do 
not seem to be on par with the rest of the group's ambitions. I don't 
trust him; he must be a plant. What if he's from central office? 
Although so far we have no real basis to think that he is, we've had no 
actual interference from external forces.

Her body lays still under the bath water except for her knees which are 
bending, sticking out. Sarah giggles remembering an MI5 incident at a 
large communist function which one her University friend's, attended a 
few years ago. There was an accusation buzzing around that those Central 
Office bugger's, had impregnated the lavatory paper with an itching 
substance. What if Darnley was recruited at the Uni, by MI5? I've known 
him for some time now and he certainly gives off the sense that he has 
no morality. As far as I recall he has never mentioned allegiance to the 
four of us. There must be some way of finding out whether he is a 
sleeper planted by Central Office. Sarah slowly lifts one of her legs up 
higher and sponges from foot to thigh, shifting her thoughts back to the 
possibilities of becoming water.

Sarah steps out of the bath and pans the top half of her torso in the 
mirror. Through the steam in the room she can just see the ghostly 
outline of her reflection. Her finger inscribes an outline of herself 
onto the mirror's surface. Condensation drips down and it looks as 
though she is melting.

Memories come flooding back to a time when she was a young child, 
walking in a fog in the streets of London. It was winter and she was on 
her way home from school. Her feet trod on a thick, condensed and 
slippery snow. She could hardly make out where to go, it was early 
evening in November and it was dark, the fog was getting thicker by the 
second. As people wandered to and fro, bumping and slipping into each 
other, looking like discordant shadows. Vehicles slowly chugged along, 
releasing gaseous, warm fumes out of exhausts. Lights from the vehicles, 
buildings and lampposts, shimmered, shrouded by the blanket haze of 
freezing fog. When the child stopped walking in the midst of home time 
chaos and held her hand out...it disappeared.

At first she was scared as images of decapitation and thoughts of parts 
of her body vanishing began to play on her imagination. Then as she 
looked around at all the people everywhere and all the hustle and 
bustle, she smiled and an overwhelming feeling of comfort began to 
reign. It felt heavenly and it made her feel special, a revelation had 
come from nowhere and changed this thirteen-year old girl's life.

It was time to move on having discovered that she was different than the 
mass of souls around her. Each step had to be measured or she would fall 
over, her legs finally guided her to a bus stop where there were many 
people standing and shivering. A bus pulled upside along the curb and 
the waiting crowd, including Sarah ascended the large red vehicle. Once 
seated, she made patterns in the condensation of the window's surface. 
It dripped and shook to the rhythm of the bus. Sarah could just make out 
her reflection, along with the outside world. When looking at herself 
and the world in the window, they fused together and became one. (mg)