by Gann, Myles
“Hello all,” he said in an odd accent that stemmed from British. “I am a Doctor of Philosophy, and also of the symptoms of the human condition. I but witness what mankind does in this debacle of life and I understand it without ridicule or lament. David has asked me to rip away the guise of human rationale and reveal to you the truth of the world. I will accomplish this with dispassion and calculation as the habits of humanity are dissected. In no time at all, you will understand the truth, as I do.”
Caleb hadn’t realized his head was cocked to the side. Even as David dismissed everybody for the day, he stayed seated in reflection. ‘This guy’s serious?’
‘You don’t believe he knows the truth?’
‘He just sounds like an arrogant idiot to me.’
‘Then I immediately enjoy him.’
‘Lovely.’
Alice tugged at his shirt. “Are we still on for today?”
“Yeah. You go to your place and I’ll meet you there. I’m going to talk to David for a second.”
She pulled him up and looked up. “Behave.”
“What do you think I’m going to do?”
“I know what a part of you wants to do to him. I was talking to that part.”
Her emphasis made his smile grow. ‘Tell your princess I’ll behave.’
“It says it’ll try its best.”
She gently tugged his arm until they were outside. Her little legs carried to her truck as David came into Caleb’s sights. The small man turned before Caleb reached him and began speaking. “Ah, Caleb. I was hoping we could talk,”
“What a coincidence.”
“I don’t want to make it seem like I’m bitter with you and Alice starting whatever you’re starting. I was just trying to keep the peace in there. You saw how it bothered them.”
“After you pointed it out to them, yeah.”
“I promise they noticed before I said something.”
“I don’t doubt it, but you gave them a reason to say something because you’re the only person in there that outranks Alice. I surely don’t want to make them uncomfortable, but you pulling their strings isn’t nice to watch either.”
“I’m just trying to keep everyone set.”
“And yet you bring in a colleague to have us thinking differently.”
“You’re saying it’s a waste of time?”
“I’m saying your motives don’t add up.”
He stepped off the curb and jingled his car keys. “Want a ride? We can talk on the way.”
‘You trust him behind a wheel?’
‘He’s a dick, maybe, but still able to drive a car.’
They approached a smaller car with downed windows. “Every Saturday get out early?”
“Yeah, I don’t like ruining a beautiful day like this.” He clicked open the doors. Both men sat in their respective places. “What are you planning for today?”
“Alice wants to show me a nice picnic spot.”
“Ah.” The car began gently purring and radio voices welcomed them. “To her place then?”
“Or somewhere near it, please.”
“I’ve never been, so you’ll have to direct me.”
“You’ve never been to her apartment?”
“She’s usually very private.” The streets came from a point and expanded beyond the car on either side. “I trust she didn’t tell you about her dating past yet?”
“She doesn’t really have one is what I’ve gathered.”
“It’s a brief one, mind you, but she does have one. With every male member of the circle, minus Christopher.”
‘I warned you not to ride with him.’ “Really?”
‘He’s probably lying anyways.’ “Yes. I never asked, but I don’t think any of them went anywhere. They just seemed like her coping mechanism so I played along. She only dated me for a few weeks though. The rest lasted months.”
‘Strange, I like him more now. Must be his ability to usurp your hope.’
Caleb let his arm dangle out the window for a block before the brakes slowed the auto unexpectedly in front of the coffee shop as David looked over. “This is where she would always meet me.” Caleb opened the door and stepped out. “And, it’s just food for thought. I’m not meaning to stick a knife between you two.”
He leaned back down to the window frame. “Thanks.”
Caleb began walking slowly, but felt his legs swimming in power after David cleared the street. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Save your thinking for later.’
‘Why do you want to see her so bad?’
‘She’s the only person I want to see because she’s the only person who can hurt you now.’
Caleb quickly jogged the four blocks to her apartment, and was bemused to see her standing outside in a bright yellow sundress. She smiled sweetly as he approached. “Hey. Did you run here?”
“From the coffee shop, yeah. David drove me there.”
“Oh, you two got along? That’s so fun, but odd. Why?”
“I’m pretty sure he’s chopping this up to a passing fad you have. He told me that you dated the other guys in the circle.”
Her eyes rolled. “I did not date them. I just wanted them to have some fun and to connect with them.”
“Aha, okay.”
She moved a picnic basket into her left hand while reaching for him with her right. “You don’t believe me?”
Caleb moved past her and down the sidewalk. She quickly skipped to catch up. “It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t be jealous, it’s just something I’d like to know if it did happen.”
She smiled and hooked her hand around his elbow. “Well, we’re just a chance, right?”
“As of now, yeah.”
“Well, whenever we become more of a chance, I’ll tell you, deal?”
He allowed Power to reach behind her and bring the basket over to his hand as she spoke. “Deal.” He swung the basket back and forth as a taunt.
“Sneaky.”
“I try. Where is this place?”
“Back here.” She stepped off the sidewalk and between two buildings. Caleb followed warily, noticing green brush up ahead. “This is the closest greenery to my place, and as luck would have it, it has the perfect clearing up ahead. I swear it’s got to be seventy meters wide. It’s enough for quite a few picnics and the trees are tall and green. You can’t even see the sun come up or go down—the horizon’s completely covered. It’s so cool during the day.”
“It sounds like it’d be a nice night time hangout too.”
They cut their way through the young brush. ‘These inner ones are older. How many days of pollution do you think they’ve seen?’
‘You don’t think it’s strange that there’s such deep woods right next to a city?’
‘I bet quite a lot….’
“I’ve never been here at night.”
He followed her as the trees ended and a wide green struck his eyes. The field was smaller than she advertised, but flat and just as secluded. She started skipping but stopped after only a few gallops. “I forgot the blanket? Really? Of all things to forget to bring to a picnic.”
“We can eat without one.”
“On the grass? I don’t know what kind of picnics you’ve had, but we will be eating on a blanket, thank you.”
He smiled sideways. “Fair enough, princess.”
She stuck her tongue out and scrunched her eyes. “I’ll run back and get it.”
“I can do it. I’m faster.”
“Yeah, but I’m the one that wants this to be perfect. Stay here, get comfortable. I’ll be back in a second.”
Caleb gave her a big smile as she backed out of the clearing with his eyes in hers. The basket was set down as he turned into the grassy knoll, blue sky carouseling arcedly above the higher horizon of green around him. ‘We never could find a nice place like this to practice could we?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘Ah, yeah, well we couldn’t. It was a construction site first, then a
n old football field. It was a little dank, yeah, but I was alone. That’s what always mattered to me. That’s when everything was at its peak.’
‘We won’t be alone here for long.’
‘I’ll never be alone again. May as well make the best of it.’
‘For the sake of your mood and your woman, I wouldn’t.’
‘She’s not mine, and you won’t hurt her.’
Power didn’t answer as Caleb slowly unraveled its parasitic talons from his torso and spread to the outer green. He gently pushed the basket under a tree and sat down, feeling his lungs strain to breathe over fifty meters of space. The entire area heaved and sighed; heaved and sighed, waited and watched, listened, and suddenly heard music as if it poured out of his head. “What’s that?”
“A talent I discovered. We’re in your mind now, yes? And your mind is spread now, so music that enters your brain is focused through me, into your brain, and into the field we project. You’ve become a jukebox.”
“No quarters required. Good deal.” He focused on a single song, and suddenly couldn’t stop his mouth from moving. “This was the song my mom always used to tell me to turn down. Even when she could barely hear it from my ear buds, even with the quiet solo near the end that truly invigorates my heart; she still had no taste for it. It reminds me so much of her.”
Behind Caleb, his blue mirror had transformed into a life-like version of his mother.
The song changed, Power returning to normal as Caleb focused more on the current strums. “This was mine and Carol’s first dance. My freshman year, August twenty-sixth, ten-thirty-three. She had red punch on her white dress that we both laughed at. My dark-green polo blended into the walls nicely. I feel you, over my shoulder. You can’t be here.” A warm wind clammed his shoulder under his shirt. “What do you want? You’re not real.”
“What is real, Caleb?”
The haunting voice offered his hearing a glimpse of penultimate, ignominious action. “I am. You’re not.”
“In here, we’re all just thoughts.”
“No, you’re just a memory.”
“You always lived here.”
“I know.”
“You never thought I was good enough.”
“I know.”
“You know now, but you didn’t then.”
“I know, I know.”
“There’s nothing you can fix. Nothing you can change.”
His field suddenly vibrated heavily from the front. The image disappeared from Caleb’s shoulder as Alice’s hand gently ran across the side of the dome. He withdrew it slowly into the outline of his body as he stood, she running up with the blanket and basket in hand. “That was so cool. What was that?”
“That was me extended out a bit.” He avoided eye contact for a few seconds before flashing a smile. “I’ll explain over lunch.”
- - -
Caleb hadn’t seen the twilight. He hadn’t glanced as the sun bled into the oceans and meadows beyond his furthest sights, but had only stared at the sidewalk, wandering in wonder until he soon found himself in the same meadow as before. The darkness here was substantial; his eyes never illuminated beyond the sentry pastels. ‘You haven’t dwelled on Carol much at all today.’
‘I’ve wanted to, trust me.’
‘I know. So have I.
‘Why you?’
‘I feel what you feel Caleb. How could you not realize that by now?’
‘I do, but you’re too rational to be that way.’
‘And what are you?’
‘I’m too logical not to be that way. I did something wrong, I can’t change it. It’s something that is forgiven with time.’
‘You failed her.’
Caleb sighed. ‘I failed a lot of people, and if I ever get the chance, I’ll redeem their memories. Until then, what will be will be.’
‘What will be is what we make it. Even you have the power to change some things.’
‘I’ll change what needs to be changed and do what needs to be done. Nothing more.’
Leaves rustled at his back against the darkened bark. “Who’s out there?”
Caleb’s calm demand for identity settled for rustling brush for a bit longer in the pitch black before a voice sounded. “Everybody. Who am I speaking to?”
‘Your woman. How did she follow us?’
‘Good question.’ Caleb stepped lightly forward, only able to guess at obstacles and distances so far into the night brush. “Alice?”
“No I told you it was Everybody. Who are you?”
‘What game is she playing now?’ Caleb smiled a bit. ‘And why are you enjoying this idiocy?’
‘Mind your business and I’ll mind mine.’ “I guess I’m Nobody.”
He thought he saw one of her beckoning brown eyes, but could only guess his sight’s accuracy. “You’re Nobody and I’m Everybody, huh? Well, Nobody, mind if I sit and talk with you?”
“Not at all, Everybody.” He felt her forehead hit his chest and they both laughed a bit. “I’m here. Careful sitting. Who knows what likes hanging around here at night.”
Her hands curled around his wrists as he carefully sat her down with a grunt. Letting his butt land hard within inches of hers, she asked, “What are you doing out here, Nobody?”
“Just felt like thinking. I like thinking in the dark.” He felt the side of her bare arm brush against his. “The interesting question is how did you find me?”
“I did lead you here, and I do like this place, but only usually during the day. The day makes me feel alive, pretty even.” Caleb held back the urge to reassure her, infinitely cursing his onset timidity. “Like I stand out in a crowd more than usual. I never enjoyed the night alone. It always seemed like a time to be with someone, ya know? You seem to enjoy it alone if you’re out here…well, I guess you’re never really alone, but you know what I mean. Why do you like the night?”
“Heh, exactly the opposite reason you like the day.” Her head leaned onto his shoulder as his voice lost some volume, keeping his words for her ear alone. “The day shows people for what they are as people, but the night shows us what we are as living creatures. You, me, everyone else in the circle, we all stand out in the day just like a million other weirdos, but the night is when we’re all the same on that level. It’s like closing your eyes in a crowd: every footstep is going the same direction at the same time. We’re one with all of nature on special nights like tonight, when the moon is beneath the tree line and the city is far enough away where the sky is clear. You can see it all, and it can all see us on this kind of night. I don’t know. I think we should all see these nights, then no one would be afraid of the dark.”
“What if somebody lost themselves in the dark?”
“Are you afraid of being lost in the dark?”
“Sometimes,” she nuzzled gently against his stout arm, “maybe that’s why I prefer it with other people.”
Caleb felt no safeguard. “Nobody could hold you in the dark.”
There was silence; the dark around them swallowed the nightly chatter of the beast and insect world while the inky sky stained the light from the wood. He felt his heart hold itself from beating as his lungs suddenly found breath superfluous. It was memorably reminiscent as Power showed him flashes of the night he told Carol of his secret, but guilt and heart-ache stayed away. His frozen blood and clear mind stalled further noises of the world; their closest conversations never reached his ears. No careless breezes bombarded the trees, no clouds shaded a star, no grass leaned in for a closer listen, only Alice’s face rolled up, her eyes suddenly vibrantly visible, and Caleb whispering in his head, ‘I needed you to see her in the dark. I can see now.’ Her eyes suddenly got closer then stopped, a cautious black line between them, before he suddenly felt a wet, tentative kiss grace his cheek, allowing his air to come sweeter and blood to pulse warmer.
Her arm snatched around his elbow and her head turned down, tiny whispers emanating from her mouth that was surely still warm from his cheek.
“I’ve never done that why did I do that? What came over me? He’s probably so mad at me now I broke our friendship—it’s ruined.”
“Hey,” he whispered down to her, “I’m glad you did it. I liked it. Did you?”
She went on whispering quietly, her thoughts seen clearly in the night. “I did it of course I wanted to but I—my heart is beating so fast I feel—look up at him you’re being rude.” She turned her face upwards, Caleb feeling her heavy breaths grace his chin. “I liked it a lot I think, but I don’t know…I’m—”
“Flustered?”
“Yeah, quite a bit.”
“Don’t be.”
Caleb released and stood just as her cell phone vibrated from her pocket. He heard her fumbling as he knelt down in front of her, the glow illuminating her face like a spotlight in the night while he kept outside the rays. “David’s gathered everyone at the gymnasium. Apparently the power station went down and half the city is dark.”
His hand reached into the light while his body remained shrouded, bringing her look up his arm and into the mass of black that blended to the sky. “I guess it’s a blackout everywhere then.” She turned the phone off quickly and grabbed his hand with both of hers, his arm flexing to lift her body easily from the dark grass. They gently fumbled for a bit as their eyes could find more behind their lids than in the open before Caleb repositioned her hands on his shoulders and his own around her slender waist. “Would you like to dance with me, Everybody?”
He felt his voice tickle the roof of his mouth with the satiny warmth that came from some part he’d thought shriveled. He heard her chuckle and whisper a few lines, too fast for him to hear in his languid state, before he felt her balance with one hand and two small rustles in the grass a few feet away sounded. His shoes were soon indented slightly as her tiny feet balanced on his toes, her face nestled into his neck and her arms holding him close. He began to step; one foot raised an unseen distance while they swayed their joined hips against the still air until the second foot followed suit. The simplicity of the motions was uninterrupted and unchanged; they still moved and breathed and craved a perfectly warm place, but now they were simply doing it together. “What difference does it make how you do things, Caleb?”