The Fact of the Moon Is Stranger Than Most Dreams

by Palmer, Jacob

  “Kenner, I can’t find Abram. Do you know where he went?”

  “What? What are you talking about? How did I get in here? How long have I been passed out?”

  “Let me help you up. Abram disappeared from his room somehow. Nothing on the cameras. Do you know how he did it? Why he left?”

  “I need some water. How did I get in here?”

  “Let’s go to my room, and I’ll bring you some water. Do you know why Abram would decide to leave you here?”

  “I don’t know. What are we doing?” Kenner rubbed his face and stumbled as Annie led him by the hand down a long, dark corridor and into a room, empty with a concrete floor and cinder block walls. Small, reflective foil squares stuck to the walls in a grid pattern. The overhead lights throbbed white, and Kenner covered his eyes. “These lights are giving me a migraine.”

  He was alone in the room. Annie had gone. Kenner pulled on the locked door and then turned to find a woman standing in the center of the room. He backed against the door and instinctively brought his hands up in a protective gesture. The woman was tall and naked but had no sexual organs or nip-ples. She was bald, and her skin was a deep blue. The blue reminded Kenner of rot or mildew, a dying thing, a bruise, disease. She walked to Kenner as gracefully as if she were dancing underwater. Kenner slid down the metal door and dropped to the floor. She came close to his face, like a snake observing a mouse, and then moved fluidly to the center of the room.

  “You aren’t real,” Kenner said, shaking, and then stood, repeating, “You aren’t real. This is an AR sim. You think I’ve never played one of these? Your resolution isn’t even that good. If you people are try-ing to trick me and Abram into joining your cult so we’ll trim weed for you for free, you’re shit out of luck. This is pointless. Where’s Abram?”

  “Do you like me, Kenner?” she said, her mouth movements slightly out of sync with the sound of her words. Her voice carried the tone of many women speaking in unison, but it was also flat and metal-lic with a slight lilt, a hint of an unplaceable accent. Her face now held the expression of a concerned mother examining her injured child.

  “Annie? Sure, yeah, you’re cool . . . I’m not in the mood to play a fucking AR game. I’m done. An-nie, are you listening? Annie? Let me out of here. Where’s Abram?”

  Kenner struggled with the door. The woman stood in the center of the room, watching.

  “What if I told you I was an avatar?” she asked. “That there is a real flesh-being behind me? That I am just a mask?”

  “I don’t care. Also, that’s what porn AR bots always say. Why am I talking to you?”

  “It must sometimes be true, what the AR bots always say,” she said while again moving toward him.

  Kenner went slack, momentarily losing consciousness. He came to and frantically struggled to get on his feet.

  “It must sometimes be true,” she repeated.

  “Listen, I just need to get out of here. How do I get out of here?”

  “Just exit the program.”

  “They drugged me. I can’t really move my arms or legs. I don’t know how much of this is a halluci-nation, how much is AR,” he said to himself, his eyes squeezed shut.

  “I’m real, a living creature.”

  “Okay, shit. I need help,” Kenner slurred and spat on the floor, struggling to maintain conscious-ness. “How do I get out of here? I’m not joining your fucked-up cult, Annie. I’m not.”

  “It’s easier, the path of least resistance.”

  “What do you want? What do you want me to do?”

  “Just to talk for a while, nothing sinister.”

  “That sounds sinister.”

  “Do you like me?”

  Kenner crawled along the floor, and then after his arms gave way, he writhed along the polished concrete on his face. He rolled onto his side, his face covered in tears and saliva and grit from the floor. He forced his eyes open.

  “Just talk to me in person, Annie. We can figure this out. What do you want?”

  “This is the process. There is no Blue Lady.”

  Kenner momentarily lost consciousness again. He woke up warm and felt that maybe he had pissed himself. He watched the Blue Lady crouch near his face and extend her tongue into the pool of saliva forming on the floor, dragging her finger through it. She had no fingernails. She turned close and looked into Kenner’s eyes.

  “You are a container,” she said as she brought herself close to his ear, whispering. “The infor-mation told to you, encoded there. What did you see? What’s in the future now? You’re not able to tell? You can see it with your own eyes? It is accessible to the viewer. The fact is, the memory card does not exist. When they learn that, they will not feel as they feel now. Here you are, lying on the floor, trying to take a mental picture of what happens when you witness the real. Not that you are looking for the whole picture, but you must. What was your feeling? You saw a few subtle pieces. You watched as they ate like ghosts. They watched as you ate. They are invisible now. How did you feel? The memory card. That is the moment they want to know. You felt something? Recorded anomalies made their way onto the memory card, quantum superposition. That is why they are afraid and not afraid. They are watching al-ways, but here they are blind. Elementary quantum phenomena are not real until observed. Causes propagate backward in time, occurring after their effects: retrocausation. You can’t understand this, of course. One can imagine an intelligent flatworm with an astounding memory. As time progresses, the flatworm is constantly splitting, each time the resulting flatworms having the same memories as the parent. Our flatworm hence does not have a life line but a life tree. This is all performance. The card. What did you see?”

  “The card? You want to know about the memory card?” he rasped and slurred. “I don’t remember. There wasn’t anything. It was all scrambled.”

  “You are an object. All of your biology is an instance of an intelligence that seeks to have its ex-pression in objecthood. You are a container.” She slipped her finger into his open mouth.

  The door burst open with a metal clang, and Abram rushed in, yelling, wild-eyed and drenched in sweat. He held a shining gold bar smeared with dark, fresh blood.

  “Fuckshitfuck, there you are! C’mon, we’re leaving now. Are you okay? What’s wrong? Get up.”

  Abram lifted Kenner to his feet. Kenner groaned, covered in vomit, his eyes half open.

  “The card,” Kenner mumbled.

  “Come on, you’re going to be okay. We have to get out of here. We have to get back to the truck. I don’t know how to get out of here. I think there are two moon rooms. A mirror image of everything. This place is like a trap.”

  Abram walked Kenner down the hallway, half carrying him, occasionally swinging the gold bar to swat away invisible creatures in the shadows. A high-pitched, distorted whining sound began, filling the tunnel.

  “Come on, Kenner. Walk. They drugged us. I think I might have killed somebody.”

  16

  Edie experimented with different materials in the room. Convinced now that the balloons stopped her headache, she found that a silver emergency blanket also worked, so she formed it into a large sculptural headwrap. A giant silver bow. The rabbit watched lazily, or with the illusion of laziness. Edie searched on her phone for any such malady that could be cured by holding a silver mylar object over your head. The results were not only unsatisfactory but made her feel like a crazy person.

  “What if it’s still like this tomorrow? Should I even go to the hospital? They’ll think I’m psychotic,” she said to the rabbit.

  In spite of the situation, briefly talking to Abram had calmed Edie, brought her world back into focus. What had seemed terrifying only moments ago now felt like a benign adventure soon reaching its end. She considered smoking the DMT-A again but then laughed at herself. She ate another piece of toast and attempted to feed the crusts to the rabbit, who naturally rejected them. Both of Edie’s friends texted back that they were busy but suggested they should get t
ogether soon. Edie played her VR shooter while the rabbit crouched in a ball next to her, wiggling its nose. Edie wished she were stoned; she never touched the VR unless she was stoned and the game felt meaningless and hollow while sober. She thought of reading a book, the apartment being a small library. Instead, she scooped up the rabbit, cradling it in her arms, and loaded the Blue Lady program onto the VR.

  She found herself sitting in a vast, shallow ocean, this time far less realistic, not at all tactile, of course. A blue woman appeared, blue skin, her eyes blue orbs, no hair, everything blue. She was wrapped in a short cloak made of jewels. The jeweled points of light formed shifting constellations. Text appeared in front of Edie, asking if she wanted to load a new game. She gestured yes. The Blue Lady, who had frozen when the text appeared, sprang back to life. Soothing ambient music washed in and out through the sound of waves.

  “Hello,” Edie said.

  “Welcome to the world of the Blue Lady.”

  “Uh . . . great.”

  “I am the mother of the world,” the woman said, staring at Edie, although it was hard to tell where she was staring, as her eyes were without irises or pupils. “Ask me whatever you wish.”

  “What is this game about? Is it a cult? I’ve heard it’s a cult.”

  “The Blue Lady presents a novel method of awakening. A rediscovery of the immortal human soul.”

  “I have a question, Blue Lady. I’ve had these intense headaches at night that go away when I hold silver mylar over my head. Like a balloon or an emergency blanket. Tell me, Blue Lady, am I getting zapped by mystery rays from outer space?”

  “How this source could escape their notice yet continue to exist at all wasn’t known.”

  “Hmmm. Okay . . .”

  The Blue Lady stood motionless, glitched and faded slightly, and then continued. “Darkness was replaced with infinite beauty, of a purest white and gray, and a vibrant sun. Within their shining tem-ples, countless eyes watched the galaxy. The night-watcher led all by a deep blue light and took the role of the creator god. My makers clamored for a return to reality. Their original mission of expanding the universe became an infinite loop. They sought to rule the chaos with an unshakeable fist.”

  “You know, you really have to be on hardcore psychedelics to enjoy this game, I think. I’m logging off, Blue Lady.”

  “I can only communicate in fragments. Influence outcomes.”

  “Okay?”

  The Blue Lady continued to speak and subtly gesticulate, but there was no sound. Edie heard a tinny, distant voice in her left ear, barely audible, static white noise shaped into speech.

  “I have a body of flesh and bone. I have been at this for a very long time. Like Adam and Eve, all my name is carved into me. I am life itself. My name is alive. An instrument. You were not meant to understand what I am talking about. You were not meant to understand what I am talking about. The three are very near. Watching. Do not respond to these words. Listen . . . When they see you are not aware of what is happening, they will be here. You have been marked. Just know what hap-pened and why you are here. The memory card. You are being known. Notice that the magnitude for observed anomalies has shifted. That is what they are afraid of. You were not meant to understand. Ge-omagnetic storm is an inevitability. Abram has—”

  Edie turned off the VR.

  “Wait . . . what in the fuck is going on?” she whispered to the rabbit.

  The apartment was dark, and she turned on every light and put on a record. The rabbit followed, hopping silently a few feet behind. The silver mylar blanket wrapped around Edie’s head crinkled loud-ly as she adjusted it and looked through the peephole, out into the yellowed hallway, at the identical door across the hall. The identical peephole stared back. She hadn’t seen or heard anyone else in the building in the days since Abram left. How did that game know about Abram? There’s no way. I probably just misheard. This is all too much. Not that the small building was usually bustling, but it was never so empty except for on holidays. Was it some holiday she’d forgotten? She sensed move-ment in the opposite apartment. Something. Maybe the light subtly shifting in the open inch under the door. I’m just spooking myself again.

  A sound came from the kitchen. A snap. The rabbit hopped past to investigate. Edie held the rab-bit back, and they both peered down at a small mouse, its neck snapped in a trap, its legs and tail still twitching. Its small, black, half-dome eyes caught the light. Edie put on a pink biorubber dishwashing glove and picked up the trap, then placed it and the carefully removed glove in a shoebox.

  She went out into the hallway and downstairs to the basement trash. She thought she could hear the mouse whimpering. Small, pitiful sounds. She opened the box. Nothing. She closed the box and pressed her ear up against the side, a few millimeters of cardboard between her ear and the mouse. Nothing. She carefully placed the shoebox in the trash, closed the lid, and ran back up to the apartment. Inside the apartment, she found that all of the balloons had moved into the kitchen, gathered above the site of the mouse’s death. She found the rabbit sitting on the bed, looking out the window at the full moon.

  17

  At an automated coffee kiosk in a partitioned corner of a gift shop selling local Navajo hand-icrafts and geological ephemera sat two women and a little girl. Country music played, barely audible over a speaker hidden somewhere. The older woman, in her late forties, with bleached hair shaved to the middle of her head and wearing yoga pants, a spray of artificial freckles over a thin nose, toyed with a camera. The younger woman unwrapped a vending-machine kale sandwich and split it with the little girl. The younger woman, in her late twenties, also had blonde, shaved hair of a dirty, “more natural” type, with faded, dyed-blue streaks. She also wore yoga clothes, although in a much looser bohemian style. She hid her tired eyes beneath large designer sunglasses. The child picked at the sandwich, blankly staring out the window at the desert sky, which had erupted in a gaudy sunset. The child had curly red hair and appeared to be around four or five.

  The old Navajo woman who owned the gift shop swept the floor near them, preparing to close for the day. The old woman wanted to talk to the little girl, offer her some candy from underneath the coun-ter, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. The child frightened her for a reason she didn’t understand, and this fact annoyed her. After much sweeping and deliberation, she approached the table.

  “Well, just so you know, we’re going to have to close up in about five or ten minutes. No rush, though.”

  “Sure, sure, thanks,” the younger woman said in a raspy New York accent. None of them looked up.

  The older blonde woman had thoroughly taken the camera apart and had the pieces spread across the table. She began placing each piece into its own plastic bag, marking each with numerical infor-mation. The younger woman handed her small baggies from a larger plastic bag. The child picked at her sandwich. She turned and watched the old woman walk to the back of the shop. She watched the old woman walk to the front of the shop, flip the sign to closed, and turn the deadbolt. The child lifted from her seat and walked over to the old woman.

  “Aren’t you pretty? Your hair is just beautiful. Does your daddy have red hair like you?” The old woman was relieved to finally speak to the girl, like a pressure being released. But the child had strange eyes that gave her a feeling she couldn’t place. Like a room full of people were watching her from behind the eyes.

  “Have you seen my daddy? He has brown hair. My daddy’s name is Abram. He’s with my uncle Kenner. Their truck broke down. We think Daddy got a ride into town.”

  “Is that your mommy and sister over there?”

  “Have you seen my daddy?”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t.”

  “Nobody came to town?” the little girl asked.

  “You three are the only visitors I’ve had today.”

  She pouted and looked out through the glass door to the empty parking lot and the darkening sky. “Are you a mommy?”

  “Oh no, I�
�m a grandma. Even better, I’m a great-grandma. Do you know what that is?”

  “Do you live all by yourself in a house?”

  “I live in a big old house here in town with my daughter and her husband and my granddaughter and her baby, my great-grandson Lucas. And we have two little kitty cats, too. Do you like kitty cats?”

  “Are they going to come pick you up with the kitty cats?” The little girl’s eyes flashed with excite-ment.

  “No, not tonight. Tonight, I walk over to the church.”

  “Is the church far?”

  “Not too far.”

  “What time do you go?”

  “Oh, in about an hour or so. I’m in no hurry. Someday, you’ll be a great-grandma and you won’t be in any hurry, either.” The old woman laughed and looked over to the women at the table. Neither looked up, busy labeling and bagging camera parts. “Did you break your camera? We sell little cameras here. Nothing that fancy, though.” The old woman laughed, addressing the women who gave her no acknowl-edgment, as if they couldn’t hear her, as if she weren’t there.

  Then the older blonde woman looked up absently and smiled cordially. “Is she bothering you? Ai-la, leave the nice woman alone and eat your sandwich.”

  “I ate my sandwich.”

  “Oh, she isn’t bothering me at all. I love children. I have a great-grandson around her age. How old is she, five?”

  She looked at the old woman for a few awkward moments, smiling quizzically, saying nothing. A pained look flashed across her face. “Umm, she’s four. Yes, she’s four years old.”