The Sound of The Engine

The metallic rumble of a twin propeller plane went by overhead, the sound streaking across the sky like a single silver streamer.  It reverberated inside as I instantly remembered that far off place, saw a far off me who no longer exists, a memory almost forgotten that still has the power to twist visions into experience.
Hearing it was like looking through an old album, ‘Remember when I used to live there?  Remember when I used to do that?’ The bright sunshine of southern California ignited and I needed my sunglasses.  The water of a crystal clear swimming pool colored me all blue and shiny.  I could jump in naked if I wanted, no one was home. It was me and the sun, with only a furry puppy napping in the sunlight by my side.
The sound of that engine was the tone of another Lydia who lay on a plastic chaise lounge on the wooden deck my father built.  I would be out there for hours, letting the heat melt my skin and turn me brown and freckly.  The girl who closed her eyes and drank in the heat, eventually smelling salty and sweet, for that wind liked to lick away the sweat. 
A moment passed and I remembered that girl in silence. There was no one here to explain it to, no one who could really listen and feel that distant chamber with me, not here- the market was bustling and even I would soon need to forget. I tucked it away until later, when a door would open and the chamber could then be explored.

‘I worship the sun’ I used to say.

The palm trees in the backyard swayed back and forth gently.  They were thick trunks that provided a wide canopy, beneath which we would sometimes eat in the summer. My mom would carry out a skillet of fish my dad made, I would bring out a wide salad bowl and Blackstar would sit at our feet looking for crumbs. In August the coyotes would run down from the hills and howl in the fields behind our fence, the puppy would run to howl at the fence and call back to them.
Mostly I would be out there in the sun, alone.  The sound of the plane’s engines was always there, streaking by every hour.  A small airport was just a few miles away on Benson Avenue, if I opened my eyes and looked up I could see their little metal bodies in the sky.  They left trails of white across the blue canvas which soon the wind would muddle and shift and eventually erase.

That girl laying in the sun never thought things would change, she never thought that she would turn from a sun-worshipper into the sweater-garbed woman who now walks through eternal fog. 
But everything does change. I do not miss that girl. She is a curiosity, forever warm, forever surrounded by golden light, Blackstar at her side.  Now the heat burns my skin from the inside out, like a chicken in a microwave. I retreat into the shade, seeking shelter like so many other vampires.
But when I hear that sound, familiarity attached to a past so distant, it is blue and bright, it is the quiet noise of a girl basking under the sun.

My Daddy's Cars

My daddy had at least four cars.
The Camaro was my favorite, a beautiful glossy candy apple red with soft tan leather interior. Sitting in the back of that car, my little legs dangling from the backseat, I felt like I was riding in a limo. Luxury. That was what riding in the Camaro was all about.
My second favorite was the Ranchero. My Daddy would laugh when I told him I liked that car. I would say that I wanted to drive a Ranchero when I grew up and he’d laugh and say:
“You like that one huh?”.
It was white and looked like his pick up except it seemed to have been squished. It was as if God had placed his hand on the boxy shape of the pick up and flattened it out a little, making it look sleeker, like a shark. It had an interior that was the color of denim with some darker lines patterning it. I would sit on that bench seat and run my fingers over the textured fabric, tracing out the patterns while I waited for my Daddy to finish talking to people or load something into the truck bed.
The pick up truck was my least favorite. It was simple, boring compared to the other cars. It was the work horse of the lot. It had a leather bench with an interesting pattern embossed all over its surface. I’d run my fingers all over those patterns while we drove. It was no wonder I never looked out the windows. My daddy asked me once why I didn’t. He told me:
“Your missing all kinds of shit. I used to love looking out the windows when I was a kid. I saw everything.”
But he had to ride in the same car everyday. With four cars, I never needed to look out the window to see something that interested me, I was taken up with the variance of texture and shape within each ride. There were worlds in them for my fingers and imagination to explore.
The firebird was white. I liked the image of the bird painted on the hood in pale blue, its angular wings spread, head turned to one side. It was black leather inside. The back seats curved like shallow bowls. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but it smelled good. Sitting in the sun on a hot summer day that car soaked up all the heat so that when you opened the car door the smell enveloped you. The black leather burned the bare flesh of legs and thighs and hands. I liked that. Like a lizard, I soaked it up, napping in the heat.

Those were the cars my Daddy drove, the cars that were parked along the edges of our long drive way and in one side of our enormous garage. There were two more cars out back, an old maroon Cadillac with fins and a white Volvo that my grandparents had driven all over Europe in the late 50’s.
Once my daddy drove my sister and me to visit the La Brea tar pits. I left some neon hued crayons we got at the museum in the back window and they melted in the hot sun. My father was furious.
My sister and the neighbor girl and I would play in the Volvo, taking turns at the wheel, enjoying road trips of our own, planning the real road trips that we would take in this car when we grew up. The interior was in pristine condition, untouched by the decades.

The thunderbird’s engine blew on I15 on a sweltering summer day. I was in the car with my sister and mother when it happened. That was its death.
My Daddy was livid. He blamed my Mother for not maintaining it. She blamed him. I was sad to see my friend die.
Each car had a distinct spirit, a personality as real to me as those of my stuffed toys. Even as a child I perceived that the death of a thunderbird was a bad, bad omen.

It wasn’t long after the thunderbird died that my Daddy had to go away to drive a truck across country.
He was gone for a long time. A year. Nearly two.
For my birthday he mailed me a stuffed ram. I remember feeling exquisite relief as the small package from my father was placed in my hands. It was wrapped in yellow paper. He hadn’t forgotten me. He’d gone away, but he remembered me.
When he came back, the cars were gone. I don’t remember where or how or exactly when the others went, but the Camaro and the Ranchero had gone away when my daddy went away. The pick up truck remained.
After he came home he shaved off his mustache. When he emerged from the bathroom with a clean shaven face, I was terrified. I couldn’t believe it was him. I wouldn’t hug him. I ran away and eyed the stranger suspiciously.

The Thunderbird had been registered to a Tom Smith. My father would explain this to me 25 years later as we neared the bend where it died. Not far from Cajalco pass, near Horse Thief canyon, we sped through the darkness towards home and he reminisced.
“I raced a guy in the thunderbird right around this bend. That car could really go.”
“I liked that car.” I told him, “I liked all those cars.”
“Yeah. I didn’t want anybody to notice any patterns. That’s why I drove different cars all the time.”
For a moment I sat in the darkness quietly trying to fathom what paranoid scheme this statement fit in with. And then it clicked.

I knew by now that my Daddy hadn’t left to drive a truck across country. He’d gone to jail because he was a drug runner.
My mother told me when I was 18. She was angry at the time for some trivial matter and tired of keeping his secret.
It made it easier when my father tried to confess to me 10 years later. His face had been full of shame.
“You remember when I was gone? I never told you, I was in prison.”
“I know.”
With two words uttered in a flippant tone of voice I had lifted a burden from his shoulders. He didn’t need to explain. He didn’t need to say anything else.

On I15 it clicked.
“Because you were moving drugs?”
“Right. None of those cars were actually registered in my name. That Camaro was a nice car.”
He laughed.
“One time a little further back a cop pulled me over for speeding. I told him it was my friend’s car, right, and he asks ’does your friend know that you borrowed it?’ I told him, ’Oh yeah.’ you know, and apologized for speeding. I told him I wasn’t used to such a smooth ride, I hadn’t realized how fast I was going. We got to talking about what a nice car it was and how it handled and the cop let me go.”
“What names were they registered to?” I wondered.
“Just names I made up. Common stuff like Tom Smith, or Bill Jones.”
I laughed.

My Daddy had at least four cars, none of them registered in his name. My Daddy didn’t have any cars at all. The Camaro was my favorite of all the cars my Daddy didn‘t have; a beautiful glossy candy apple red with soft tan leather interior. Everybody liked the Camaro.

Qrelling

I move through the train cars at a good clip, slowing between cars only because these junctures always make me nervous. There is hardly a soul on this train, but it’s enough to warrant my presence here. I can feel that things are progressing too slowly, I have missed my target somehow and now I am moving away from him. Disaster is eminent.
“Still no visual.” I say scanning the car. My voice, transmitted by the nano mics implanted in my hair follicles, reaches Zenith back at mission control as though we were standing shoulder to shoulder.
“Copy that.” Zenith’s voice sounds in my ear. “We’re reaching critical here.”
“I know.” I tell him. And I do, I can feel it in my rising pulse, the dizzying sensation that fills my head. “The third car, the third car.” I mutter under my breath and finally a little louder I announce, “I’m going back to the third car. He should have been there. He must still be there.” I turn on my heel and retrace my steps, jogging as I go, barreling through those doors between cars. Things are really hot when I reach my destination, my head is swimming.
“Ava, you’re running out of time.” Zenith’s voice is anxious. I scan the car. An old woman taking a nap, two small girls playing a clapping game besides a mother reading a magazine, a young man bobbing his head placidly to music only he can hear.
I push into the passage between the second and third car, standing right in that in between space that terrifies me. There is a whistling sound and I notice a maintenance flap that opens to the outside of the train.
“God.” I gasp, though I don’t believe particularly in any God, “He’s outside, he’s somewhere on the outside of the third car.”
I slip through the flap, holding tight to the hand grips mounted to the side of the train. The wind hits me with an icy blast and I find myself clinging to the side of the train, bathed in the pale light of the tunnel. There he is, holding onto the outside of the car just a foot away from me, red faced, perspiring, waves of anguish and fear radiating from his body.
He has a small black beard, closely trimmed. There’s only a brief moment in which he looks over his right shoulder and stares with surprise at the woman clinging to the train beside him. Then I started Qrelling.
All that I need is that moment of eye contact. In that instant I establish a connection, I begin to speak with them in a language beyond languages, I begin to unravel time and reality as though they were strands of yarn in a multicolored scarf. There are many possible moments, this moment is only one possibility, one possible choice.
For this man, for instance, this is a moment in a string of moments that may lead to him detonating a bomb that will wreck the train ending his life and the lives of most of the other passengers. One of the little girls in the third car may miraculously survive. But like pearls I lay the moments out for him, showing him possibilities that lead him away from anguish, away from suffering, away from death and destruction.
Some Qrellers could help this man to get off of this train, but maybe a week, or a year later he hangs himself or takes a rifle into an elementary school. Maybe another Qreller is there to stop him, or maybe not.
I have a talent and it is this: I can lead this man into a possibility where he never harms himself or any other being ever again. It is a matter of being able to see far enough, of holding the attention long enough, and most of all , of being able to maintain the contact with the target in order to take him with me on this journey.
I am showing him the possibilities, leading him through a labyrinthine web of moments, offering him a way that he could not find on his own, not just saving him in this life, but in many possible lives.
Finally we find it, that way, a translucent stream flowing through a perfect array of pearly existence, Ariadne’s thread. I extend my hand and he clamps onto it, tears streaming from his eyes. We are still there when the train arrives at the next station and the rest of the team helps us onto the platform. He grabs hold of my hand again before we part, his eyes are the wide eyes of a man who has seen for the first time to the center of his own being; the heart of the labyrinth of existence.
“Thank you, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I say. There are tears in both of our eyes as we part.

Back at HQ Zenith shakes his head heavy with thick dreads and grips my shoulder grinning wide, white teeth gleaming in his dark face.
“You did it again. That’s a perfect record. 23 Ava, with no loses. No one in this division has ever come close.”
“It was a close one though.” I sigh, realizing finally that it’s over, my work for the moment is done. “You want to stop at the tea garden after operations are tied up here? I could use a warm cup of anything.”
Zenith grins wider and rubs my shoulder soothingly. There is a strange moment in which he doesn’t answer me. He only looks at me from behind that frozen grin. Then he says:
“Ava, there are some people here from Lancre.” We stare at each other.
“What do they want?”
His smile softens and he gives my shoulder another squeeze.

What is this emotion that we are feeling together? Elation. Lancre employs the most elite team of Qrellers in the world. They have access to the best and most innovative technologies and are contracted by the major global players, those whose infra structures reaches from Primus to Bedrock in their territories; the UN, the Tri-American Federation, and The Peoples Republic of Asia.
Sorrow. I’ll be leaving our little project funded by the local government and the team that trained me, the team I’ve grown with. I take a look around at our basement with white tarp functioning as dividers, Zenith’s folding table littered with electronics that look like something raided from an antique store specializing in 20th century home entertainment devices. I look back into Zenith’s familiar dark face finding his eyes again.
“23 Ava....23. With what they have at Lancre, imagine what you can do.”

Lancre is all steel and glass rising through two terra regions and breaking the surface of Primus. Hardly anyone can afford access to Primus anymore with its authentic blue skies. All of that glass takes advantage of the opportunity to flaunt such a rare view.
I am seeing true sky for the first time in this possibility. It is strangely unsettling, like looking at a prosthetic hand, except this is the real thing and what I am accustomed to is a prosthesis.
My guides through the halls of Lancre are a man and a woman in crisp black suits. Her hair is pinned in an immaculate French twist and her skirt is tight, very feminine. She does all the talking, he is silent with broad shoulders and a close haircut. He looks bored.

They have given me a brief tour of the facilities, introducing me to some of the technological advances being employed here, letting me shake hands with some of the legendary names; Felix Kaffa, Nora Al Gi. Now we are in an office of stainless steel fixtures seated at a long table.
Her name is Mia and she has already shown me the figure that will be my yearly salary, a number too large for me to comprehend the impact it will have on my life realistically. A number that simply means I shall not want for anything, ever again.
She has shown me the brochure of the living quarters offered to all Lancre Qrellers. We are free to obtain residence elsewhere if we wish, but the Lancre penthouses are equipped with state of the art equipment and facilities to help Qrellers relax and recharge. They are also above Primus where I will have access to fresh air and sunshine, and one is mine for the rest of my life, once I sign the contracts and become an agent of Lancre.

Mia is laying the contracts in front of me.
“The wonderful thing, Ava, is that you will take no more than six assignments a year, we have enough agents to rotate. You will never be overworked or overtired. And you won’t have to worry how things will get along without you because every agent at Lancre is as qualified as you are.” She tells me, handing me the thin stainless steel pen. “All I need is your signature. Then we’ll go over and select your penthouse or I can take you to meet a property manager I know who can help you find something else suitable. Tomorrow we can introduce you to your team and you can begin conditioning.”
I start to read the contract. And then I see it, the strangest thing.
“Excuse me, what does this mean?” I ask Mia
“Oh, it just means that when you are Qrelling you can’t arrange things too far. You can heal no more than three probable instances of violence.”
“What? A lot of people can’t Qrell beyond three instances. Why would you stop someone who can do more?”
Mia smiles
“Well, Lancre is a private firm. Someone pays us to avert the first three. Someone else will pay us to avert the next three."
I stare at the contract. A cold sensation washes over me. The temptation is not too strong. I feel only a slight sense of loss as I set the pen down. What is being gained is limitless, immeasurable.
“I’m sorry.” I tell her. “I am happily employed by the City States of California.”
Mia laughs a little as if she thinks I am joking. She falls silent as I stand.
“Thank you for the tour. I think you should show me out now.”
Show me back underground where I am needed, where they are wandering blind through the darkened passages of a coiled maze. I can show them the way, a way beyond skies of any color or comfort, or currency. Show me out now. I will show myself out. I will show us all out as I have always done, as I will always do, as I am doing now. Extending a hand, uncoiling a line, traveling to the center and back out again. I think you should show me the way out now, but if you won’t, then I will.

The Studio

Isa sat on the old tan carpet, her back pressed against the worn and sagging double mattress. The bed took up nearly the entire studio, which was only about 200 square feet, smaller than some of the bedrooms she had lived in. There was one single wide window by the front door with a view of the grassy courtyard in front, which was green but still managed to exude an aura of abandonment with its yellow dandelions and overgrown patches.
Opposite the window was a small kitchenette just barely visible behind a wall of boxes. There were stacks and stacks of things in the crowded studio, a lifetime of stuff crammed between four walls. On top of the boxes were loose papers and dirty laundry, dust and dog hair, the smell of things left sitting too long. Below the thin glass window was a faded striped couch whose back was covered with an old gray blanket that looked coarse to the touch.
A narrow walkway had been created between all the boxes and trash bags filled with clothes, it wove around the bed and between the boxes and stacks of papers and cut back to the bathroom and kitchenette. The carpet, only visible because of the cleared path, was tan and covered in a thick layer of beige dog hair. The studio was one in a dozen of single-story Indian red cottages just off the intersection of Broadway and San Lorenzo, which ran parallel to the river. The cottages were easily accessible by a single flight of stairs (just ten steps) that led from the intersection down to Barson St, which marked the beginning of the beach flats, a neighborhood of immigrants, small-time prostitutes, street dealers and a handful of students.
Isa sat on the ground, her back pressed against the mattress and dirty box spring. Ray sat in front of her on the couch, his knees shaking, his jaw clenching over and over like he was chewing gum, his entire body a picture of anxiety. Mick was supposed to be back any minute with the score. Until the moment he came back, opening the door with a squeak, Ray would sit there uncomfortably, his eyes darting nervously without seeing anything.
Debbie was laying on the bed sipping on a large glass of water, the golden retriever curled up by her feet.
“When did you say he left Deb?” Ray asked.
“He left about thirty minutes ago, but you know how slow he walks, nothin’ he can really do to go faster- those legs-”
“Yeah-” Ray answered nervously.
Isa pictured Mick walking, a thin man with thinner twisted legs and a colostomy bag hanging by his hip. He looked like an old Bob Dylan, if Bob Dylan had been hit by a car and then left in a hole for ten years. His face was sunken and pock-marked and pale, his dirty curly hair was just a few inches long but looked withered and burnt. Debbie was over forty, had thick limbs and a torso covered in fat. She was in her pajamas sprawled out on the faded blue sheets, looking slightly less anxious than Ray, but she was waiting too, anxious to shoot up.
“He left like- thirty minutes ago Deb?”
“Yeah.”
“Man, I’d have given him a ride if I knew it was gonna be this long. I’m phenin,’ you know?”
“I know. We’re all hurtin’”
Isa was quiet sitting on the old tan carpet, her back pressed against the worn and sagging double mattress. She looked at Ray, her beautiful boyfriend who had turned into something she just couldn’t bare to admit, not now. Now she just wanted the drugs. Wanted him to find a vein, get some dope for tomorrow and then they could go home. Maybe he’d eat her out when he felt better, maybe they’d watch a movie, lay in bed. Then she could pretend things were ok.

Dermit

Dermit has a skin problem. There is a name for his condition, but those who are blessedly free of it are oblivious to that name. They simply see Dermit’s splotchy red skin and put an extra foot of space between him and their own unblemished surfaces.
Dermit lives on the third floor. He rides the antique elevator up and down twice a day; once on his way to the post office where he works and once again on his way home. Occasionally he sees Tabitha from number 5 riding in the elevator to or from the second floor. When Dermit sees Tabitha his palms grow sweaty and the red patches of his skin feel particularly itchy.

Tabitha wears a goldenrod beret and matching crocheted scarf. Her pea coat is navy blue, her ballet flats are red and she wears a hue of lipstick that matches the color of the shoes. Her hair reminds Dermit of a dark polished wood like mahogany and maintains a stylish bit of waviness that he is certain comes naturally to her. Her eyes are remarkably blue. Dermit thinks that women with dark hair and pale eyes are a rare treasure.

Dermit wears his post office uniform. He covers his arms with a navy blue cardigan. He hides his legs in the dark blue trousers and avoids the shorts that some of his colleagues wear in the fair months. Despite this, the condition shows itself on the backs of his hands and sometimes flares up along his neck and behind his ears. He spends too much time in front of the mirror adjusting his wire rimmed spectacles and buttoning and unbuttoning the cardigan, helpless against the unwanted patches of irritated flesh.

Tabitha has noticed Dermit in the elevator, fussing with his sweater buttons and staring zombie like at anything but her. She has taken the extra steps to put space between herself and the guy with the rash.

One day, after work, Dermit boards the elevator.
“Hold the elevator please!” someone calls from the building entrance.
Dermit waits listening to the hurried scuffle of shoes on marble and Tabitha appears. Her eyes widen when she sees who it is she is boarding with. Dermit closes the accordion style gate and presses the number three button.
“You’re on two right?” he asks her.
Tabitha forces a smidgen of a smile and nods curtly. Dermit presses the button marked two. He begins to turn to stare into space as is customary, but suddenly looks directly at Tabitha and blurts:
“My name’s Dermit, I live in number 8.”
He extends his hand and Tabitha merely stares at it, at the red splotch that has swallowed it. After a moment Dermit retracts the hand.
“Sorry,” he says. “It’s... it’s not contagious.”
Tabitha swallows. Dermit tries again.
“I’ve just... seen you a lot and wanted to introduce myself. Maybe we could get a cup of tea around the corner sometime. It’s nice to know your neighbors.”
The elevator stops at the second floor.
“I’m really busy, a lot of the time,” Tabitha says as she opens the accordion style gate, steps out and closes it again behind her. She is already out of sight when the elevator resumes its ascent.

Alone in his apartment Dermit adds this year's special edition valentine stamp to his collection before feeding his cat, Archimedes. He vows to take the stairs for the rest of the month and looks for a new dermatologist in the phonebook.

One night after work, Dermit stops at the corner drugstore to pick up the cream his new dermatologist has prescribed. There is a woman in line ahead of him and it takes Dermit a while to recognize her as his unfriendly neighbor from the second floor. He abstains from greeting her.

At the register, Tabitha swipes her debit card to pay for the tampons and Advil she has brought to the counter. An uncomfortable minute lapses and the cashier says,
“I’m sorry. It says there are insufficient funds.”
Tabitha fumbles as she pulls out another credit card and takes the debit card back. She swipes it and is once again denied after an anxious wait. She tries again with the first card, her shoulders creeping towards her ears, her cheeks reddening. She can feel the eyes of those in the growing line behind her. As she takes the card back from the irritated clerk a fourth time, a man steps up beside her at the counter and hands the clerk his own debit card.
“Here, try this one.” Dermit says as the hot silent tears start slipping out of Tabitha’s eyes. “And I’m here to pick up a prescription for McLaughlin."
“Thank you.” Tabitha sniffs as the clerk turns to fetch Dermit’s cream. She is unable to look at the stranger beside her and instead stares down at the counter trying to stop the tears.
“It’s all right.” Dermit tells her.

When the transaction is complete Dermit hands the paper bag full of Tampons and Advil to Tabitha and she looks at him for the first time. She starts to cry silently again, walking with Dermit towards the exit. After a few sniffs they step out into the cool night and Tabitha says,
“Thank you again, uh, Dermit. I’ll pay you back. You said before that you’re in number 7 right?”
“Eight.” Dermit tells her, “But don’t worry about it.”
“No, I will.” They start walking towards their building together. In silence they pass through the lobby and board the elevator. Dermit presses the buttons for both floors. The elevator stops at the second floor and Dermit opens the accordion style gate for Tabitha.
She steps into the hall and presses her lips together. Her cheeks are still burning crimson.
“My name’s Tabitha.” she tells him. “I live in number 5.”
Then she vanishes down the hall, her ballet flats thudding softly on the carpet.

The Lecture

Fall was touching the ‘city on the hill’, interspersed between the mountain’s thick evergreen and redwood forests were yellow and red trees shedding their thin leaves. In the air was the ever-present smell of fireplaces alight and the crisp bite of the air required a thick cozy sweater and, just for pure tactile pleasure, a warm cup of hot coffee.
The sun was just beginning to fade as the doors of the lecture hall were closing for the 6pm class. It was an amphitheater-shaped building where two hundred students could comfortably fit. Pale gray metal chairs with dark gray cushioned seats and backs were arranged in a semi-circle that rose above the narrower main floor, which is where Professor Habiman stood at the wooden podium with his lecture notes. Isa chose a seat in the far back right corner, just four rows back from the wall in an aisle seat where she had a perfect view of the professor.
As the class began, his scrawny teaching assistants handed out the multiple-page syllabus which was stapled in the left hand corner. Isa flipped through the list of required reading and assignments as Professor Habiman outlined the material and course work for Drugs and Society as well as what they would be expected to learn.
Twenty minutes in, Mr. Habiman began the lecture with an overview about the roots of addiction; being a sociology class, he mentioned societal factors including poverty, class, gender, and education. It was then that Isa had something to say. Without thinking, wondering, or waiting, she raised her hand.
Professor Habiman called on her, though it was not the custom (unbeknownst to her) for lectures to be interrupted with questions or comments, which were either asked at specific times designated by the instructor or after the bulk of the lecture. As he raised his eyebrows and waited for her to speak, the full attention of every student in the amphitheater turned towards her. Projecting her voice so everyone could hear, she said:
“Also, I’ve found that Pisces tend to have addictive personalities.”
The class was silent. Mr. Habiman, a man in his mid-50s, with a slight paunch protruding from his button-up white shirt, a neatly trimmed 3-inch white beard and combed back gray hair, stood quiet for a second, seemingly stunned, as though he was still processing what he had heard. Then he found his words.
He looked around the class, gathering the confused attention like a good stand-up comedian, his eyes sparkled and drew the audience into the folds of his emerging joke. Through a faint smile tinged with anger, he replied:
“Astrology? That’s not science. In this class, within the discipline of sociology, we study science.”
He shook his head slightly, shaking off the pitiful comment like unwelcome rain. Isa heard chuckles reverberating around the room as though in stereo sound, echoing without end.
“As I was saying,” he continued, “there are various roots of addiction…”
She sat there, her cheeks burning with embarrassment and anger, her body suddenly more aware of the creaking folding metal seat cradling her form, her feet acutely aware of the cold cement floor. She shrunk slightly and stared straight ahead, hearing nothing but bass tones, seeing nothing but yellow light and muted colors on the periphery of vision. Her cheeks were beyond blush, she was red, sweating and covered in the odor of failure.
Isa sat there for five minutes, for what seemed like hours pushing back stinging tears. The laughter, the quick rebuttal to her theory, the anger in his voice, it swirled through her like a tempest of hurt, gathering speed and fury as she thought about it more, as she fed it with her rage.
As the tears were just about to break the surface walls, she gathered her purse and scarf from the empty chair beside her and quickly climbed the few remaining stairs to the back of the amphitheater. With the raw, aggressive force of her burning body she pushed into the long metal bar (which was the ‘knob’) and heard the quick blunt sound of metal hitting metal.
Beyond the door was a cement stairwell that led to the ground and the night air, now completely black and dotted with stars. She felt a sting as her hot cheeks met the cool air like a slap and she screamed ‘FUCK!’ as she quickly descended the twenty-five stairs. On the last few steps she heard the door close behind her and the yellowish light from inside the lecture hall disappeared.

* * *

The following Wednesday night, Isa went back. Without meaning to, but following a mechanical tendency, she sat in the same place, towards the back right, not too far away from the exit door, in the aisle seat with a clear view of the professor.
The class quieted as Mr. Habiman began:
“Before we get into the material, I wanted to ask, is the young woman here who made the comment about astrology on Monday?”
A girl with short dark hair sitting just one row in front of Isa turned towards her. Isa met her eyes quickly and then looked straight ahead, saying nothing while everyone in the room turned in the general direction of the back right corner and waited. When there was no raised hand they looked around the rest of the amphitheater blankly, searching for a recognizable face. Isa stared straight ahead in silence and was thankful the girl in front said nothing, playing along with Isa’s mute example.
“Well,” he continued, “if anyone knows or sees her, please give her my apology. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

The House That Jack Built

People who could be frightened, people who were insecure, people who admired us; these were our prey. We brought them to her house and invited them to play a game with us, a game they had never heard of. It was a game they could not win, a game they could not loose, a game they could not stop. It was The House That Jack Built.

It began sometime in 1990. I had only just become aware of the passage of time, that there were numbers assigned to years. I had found a newspaper in the garage and read a headline about the gulf war. A strange electrical sensation coursed through my body. War. I had heard of war. I changed schools that year and entered into the fifth grade in a program for gifted children. That was when I received my first phone call. That’s when it began.

Other children had called in the past to arrange play dates or invite me to birthday parties. But no one had ever called just to talk to me before. I sat on the dark steps leading into the rumpus room with the black rotary phone between my feet. Brow furrowed, I believe I asked her:
“What do you want?”
“Just to talk.”
“I should go now.” I said, wishing to return to my own inner world, to the sanctity of home and hood.
“Why?” she asked.
“My friend Sarah is coming over.” I told her.

Sarah lived across the street. Sarah and my sister and I had eaten and bathed and played and slept together since I was three years old. There was very little separation between myself and Sarah, myself and my sister, myself and my parents. Just as meals appeared three times a day and bath water ran once after dark, Sarah would appear before noon and we would all play dolls or house or ride bikes up and down the streets or run through the fields playing freeze tag or dance to a Paula Abdul cassette. Other children from the neighborhood might participate or not, but Sarah would be there like sunshine, or spring, or inhalation. It was pre-ordained, habitual, mechanical, natural. I had almost no sense of self. I was the accumulation of these many daily rituals, the appearance and disappearance of these other characters, the texture and variety of landscape, of house and hood.
“Sarah who?” she asked.
“Butler.” I told her.
“The earwig. Tell the little earwig I said hi.” And hearing that sentence uttered in that particular tone, nuanced as it was, changed everything. That phone call was the beginning, although at the time I didn’t know it. That was the beginning of my fall, my descent into the outer world.
Suddenly someone from outside had just created a conspiratorial connection with me. With that utterance, she plucked me from unity and bliss. Sarah was no longer a part of my self. Sarah was an earwig, and she and I could have a laugh at Sarah’s expense. Sarah’s presence in my life diminished. My interest in her as something other than an object of ridicule waned. When her mother remarried and they vanished from the neighborhood a year later, I stood in front of her house feeling the loss, realizing she had been gone for a long time, I had banished her, and now she could never be retrieved.

By 1993 my experience of self had become inverted. My family had moved. There was a new house, a new hood, new kids, a suburban landscape, all alien to me. My parents were strangers as well. Even my own body was unfamiliar. By then I was in middle school and she and I were no longer in the same class. Nonetheless I still received the phone calls, now via a cordless phone that I could carry to my room.
She came to my house to “hang out” or I visited hers. We invented a language composed of two words, “Giba” and “dumbass.” We would converse as if we understood one another perfectly, making observations about those around us, including my sister, most of which were concluded with the word “dumbass”. If my sister attempted to join the conversation and play along, we looked confounded, as though we could not understand her, but we could still communicate with one another, and we would discuss this creature making its attempts to establish contact with us, but we would never speak back to it.

The houses in the new neighborhood were identical. I would marvel over the fact that the boy three doors down was living in a structure of precisely the same shape. As I moved through my own house I was moving phantom-like through his. I would imagine going into his house, which corners I could duck into to go unnoticed as he passed, how I could give him a push down the stairs, his stairs which were identical to my stairs. Or how I might enter his room, identical to my own, while he slept and simply be there, uninvited.

1995. We were high school freshmen. We had some classes together. Sleepovers abounded. She was given the basement floor of her house as a bedroom. It had an exit into the backyard. Our fusion reached its peak. I was now distinctly “I”, a separate, confused, and lonely entity, but together there was a “we”, just “she” and “I” together, and we were ready to unleash our games upon the inferior masses.

We would invite them to her house and pull out a deck of cards.
“Have you ever played the house that Jack built?” we would ask. Invariably they answered “no” or “what’s that?”
Now came the fun. We would invite them to play with us, would shuffle the deck and deal out cards. Then we would play. The only rules in The House That Jack Built were that there were no rules other than those that she and I invented as we went along. Naturally, only she and I knew this, and we would confirm the validity of one another’s plays and confuse and shock those we were playing with.

Gradually, our playmates might begin to suspect that they were the butt of some joke, but we would continue to play with such passion and sincerity that they would doubt their own perceptions. If, smiling, they accused us of making things up, we would assure them that we weren’t, that they’d get the hang of it soon enough, it was really quite simple…
Frequently a card play would be accompanied by a loud pronouncement:
“And this is the house that Jack built!” or “Gone fishing!”
At that point we would collect all the cards that had been “played” in the center, or take away the hand of the other player, or some equivocal gesture of triumph that would leave our victim with the sense of impending defeat. The game would go on endlessly, however, and we’d take pains to steer it away from any form of completion.

Eventually our victim would beg to end the game, insist that they had to stop and we would inform them that there could be no stopping until the game was finished. We would lean in on them, glare menacingly, grin sardonically. Something in the air would change. They could not win, they could not loose, and they could not stop. Desperately some would insist that they had just lost the game, trying to join us in the rule defining, referring back to some similar situation earlier in the game for which we would always have an exception,
“Yes, but you only give up your cards if you have no clubs in hand.” or “No, all the cards must be reshuffled and re-dealt when the eight of spades precedes the queen of hearts.”
Afternoon would turn to evening. Our victim would sweat, grow quarrelsome, or cry.

There were no adults left to monitor either of us at this point in our history. We would decide as school let out to take the bus to her house. On the bus we would select who we would or would not invite for our games.
One night as we walked home from the bus stop we asked a bony acne scarred girl from her neighborhood to come over. Nicole was the kind of innocent who hadn’t learned yet to conceal her emotions. Nicole told us in her high nasal voice, that she would go home and do her homework first, then tell her mother and finally come by around 4:00. She arrived at 3:45. That was the kind of girl Nicole was.

In the basement we sat atop the washer and dryer with Nicole between us taking turns playing with a small hunting knife I‘d coerced from a boy in my Math class. I would pass it to her and she would pass it to me, but we would never pass it to Nicole who watched the blade while talking in short nervous bursts and fingering the hem of her skirt.
Suddenly She grabbed Nicole by the hair and ran the dull edge of the blade along her throat. Nicole gave out a small startled cry. As she was released, Nicole touched her throat, finding it intact, and started to sob. We smiled mockingly. Without a word Nicole grabbed her sweater and pounded away up the stairs and out the front door.

People who could be frightened, people who were insecure, people who admired us; these were our prey. We brought them to her house and invited them to play a game with us, a game they had never heard of. It was a game they could not win, a game they could not loose, a game they could not stop. It was The House That Jack Built and it wore them down, made them loose their hopeful grins, their sycophantic giggles, their pathetic displays of wit or humor.
In the end, they usually begged, especially when we lay the dull edge of the knife against their throats. Most of them believed we would do it by then, after the hours of suspicion turned to self doubt returned again to suspicion. After we had whittled away their trust in us and any tidbits of faith that they had in themselves, they would see the knife, then feel steel sliding against their flesh, and they would believe for a moment that their throat had just been slit. They would sit there wide eyed, waiting for their lives to bleed out.
For some of them, this was the moment when they lost unity, bliss. For others it was just one more crippling blow. And for just a few, it was the first time in a long while that they had lost themselves, completely and utterly vanishing in the moment, only to re-emerge into singularity a moment later, blinking and breathing and staring into our houses, identical to their own.