by Gann, Myles
“Except me, apparently.”
Caleb turned to David. “The choice still exists, but you can’t see it. Don’t feel bad, Dyllo can’t either. The only one with communicable knowledge of the choice of three sits in a big, comfy recliner in the middle.” He looked between everyone’s faces. ‘Elaborate.’ “Here, let’s push to logical extremes. The psychologist’s paradox is that you’re always going to live with rational extremes, because you’re right at the interception line between every rational extreme, meaning you will never have a true self, but if you were pushed to the very edge of your own rationale, you would arrive where? What is the why behind the action?”
“Why do I help people?”
“Exactly.”
“To…help them.”
“Infinitely, do you see? As you are constantly bombarded with their paradoxes, you cannot give one universal answer because you simply don’t see one. So, your extreme would be to stop helping, to seek out the ‘I,’ therefore oscillating you to Dyllo’s position, and Dyllo,” he walked quickly, spinning Alice’s chair again and using Power momentarily to see her growing smile, “would have the complete opposite rational extreme. Underneath all the ‘I,’ he would one day realize his uppercase-letter is only valid, therefore his self is only valid, in the presence of others, which would have him rotating down to ‘we.’” Caleb theatrically turned in place and pointed to the couple still at the base of it all. “And why? Because it is the combination of the intention of love and action of logic that is a perfect, subliminal mechanism that we can all direct ourselves to, about, or through. It is a self-sufficient mechanism. This is why the one in the middle is only capable of understanding this.” He looked down to Alice while feeling his eyes soften and his knees weaken a bit. “Which makes all of their actions come out of love, completely clear of bias.”
“You believe the middle man to be, what? A hero?”
Caleb laughed, causing ripple-effect smiles through the entranced faces of his set parts. “No, believe it or not, the category of hero falls completely under your two sections,” his hands pointed towards Dyllo and David before they came together at the base of Alice’s chair. “Here sits a true hero in every sense of the name.”
“Because heroes may do the right thing, but not for the right reason?”
“Precisely, Mr. Dyllo.”
Caleb’s set pieces could no longer remain still. Benny was the first to race over and punch Caleb in the shoulder. He was soon surrounded by all of his circle companions minus a seemingly stunned David and a brightly smiling Alice. She stood after Joy had released a strangling hug and balanced herself to his ear with her hands at her sides. “Out of love? Sounds like you want to be in my seat.”
He moved his mouth to the lobe of her unpierced ear. “Out of love is where I want to meet you in another blackout.”
She hugged around his neck, their cheeks creating flares in and out of the flesh as they rubbed fully together. The shoulder that didn’t hold her chin perfectly so felt the warmth of a hand. “Caleb,” he turned around and immediately found Dyllo’s hand extended to his open one, “do not think me a monster for the way I am.”
“No, Mr. Dyllo, I admire you for having the courage to think. I can’t look down on you for the choices we made differently.”
“You’re a bigger man than I, then.” They finished shaking and shared a smile of respect. Dyllo’s other hand casually flipped a brown fedora onto his head as he headed for the exit.
As David dismissed everyone, Caleb and Alice wandered around and picked up the strewn chairs. She would pick them up, fold them, and then add them to Caleb’s outstretched arms. His muscles burned as he kept Power at bay, and the contorted face made Alice smile with each glance. “Hurt yet?”
“No, not at all. Add ten more,” he said through held breath. When the last one was folded and slowly—purposefully slower than the rest—hung upon his pinkie, he waddled foolishly to the half-empty rack and let them slip too quickly from his ached hands. A few of them crashed in ringing fashion against the floor, which caused another cringe on the faces of Alice, Caleb, and David. ‘He’s cringing for a different reason.’
Caleb glanced over to him as he rearranged the chairs properly. ‘Leave him be. He looked a little shaken with the whole paradox thing.’
‘If it took your insights to show that he was a fool, then he’s juxtaposed in too many ways to count.’
‘Three, technically.’
‘You’re going to see that number everywhere now.’
‘It is everywhere. It’s the second lowest you can go.’
‘Technically, it’s nowhere near the lowest.’
‘The human world only has three levels. He seems shaken all the way down to his third.’
‘He did call the military on you not four days ago. Perhaps your pity is a bit misplaced.’
‘I don’t pity him at all. I observe his distress.’
‘How very “middle” of you.’
‘If it didn’t make sense in every way you could think of, you would’ve been the first to hop down my throat.’
‘My silence equates to my agreement now?’
‘You’re complicated, but not impenetrable.’
‘Where am I then on your little scale?’
‘You have to ask?’
Power flared slightly inside his body as the last chair loudly conformed into place. ‘What does it mean?’
‘That you only see the extremes of practical use. You’re completely entranced with ends without a thought to the means. In the end, you will destroy yourself.’
‘So Dyllo was right?’
‘About you, yes.’
Caleb suddenly felt the cooler air of the outdoors. ‘What does it mean?’
‘That you make me too dangerous to be around her.’
‘Don’t do that.’
“Go home, get changed, go downtown, meet everyone there?”
Caleb looked up from the sidewalk. “Sounds good.”
‘It’s the truth.’
‘It makes you unable to change, and that’s not true. I’ve seen you do it; I’ve felt you change beside me even over the last year.’
‘We’re two things sharing one body.’
‘A paradox.’
‘The most dangerous kind.’
‘No, you said a paradox cannot see the truth. You just did.’
‘I’ve got the three inside of me just like you have it in you, but it’s when we come together that the paradox is impassable.’
‘No, you’re not thinking it through, you can’t be.’
‘I’ve been pondering this for a long time.’
‘What six months? Yes, that constitutes a lifetime of work.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’ll give it all up now? When everything is there for us both? For everybody?’
‘I don’t have a choice.’
Alice and Caleb walked into her apartment. ‘There’s always a choice.’
She disappeared into her room as Caleb sat down heavily on the sunken couch. His mind was wild with guilt and fear as he gripped at his own hands again. ‘If there is a way, I can’t see it.’
‘Because you hate yourself, Caleb. You can’t! Not with her here, now. There’s where you don’t have a choice.’
‘I can’t see it. It’s so dangerous that I can’t; the road is fogged and my lights are out.’
‘You have to.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m not capable of seeing it.’
‘All I can see is my past.’
Alice walked back into the room with a pair of high rubber boots, embroidered along the edges with running ivy, a skirt with black leggings hiding her pale legs, and a blue shirt with small, sewn words atop the cotton bulk. “Boots?”
“It’s supposed to rain tonight. Do you think they match? Maybe I should bring a sweater because it usually gets colder after raining.”
“Teal boots, black leggings and a jean skirt, and a dark b
lue shirt: it looks as though you’re dressed for rain.”
She smiled for a moment before continuing. “Are you just going to wear that? I can wait for you to change if you’re not, or if you want to shower or eat or whatever. I haven’t seen you eat in a few days.”
Caleb smiled up at her and leaned forward. His hand came up to grab hers. ‘The right thing…I’m showing her a paradox.’
‘Do it. She won’t mind.’
‘Yes, she will. In the long run, it will destroy her.’
‘You want to touch her.’
‘Only if it’s right. I’ve made it wrong.’
He lowered his hand into his own lap. “Today’s been quite a day. I think I’m going to stay here and think everything out a little.”
Alice smiled. “You haven’t thought out everything already?”
“There’s only one thing left to think about.” He looked up at her with a forced smile. “And it’s by far the most important thing.”
She lost her smile and looked vacantly at him. ‘She thought it was all solved. I’m so sorry, Alice. Just one more thing, and it’ll all be perfect.’ “Us?”
“Yeah.”
Alice tilted her head and found a smile again. “Do you think you’ll know tonight?”
“I think I have to.”
She stepped back and mumbled while fiddling around with the outlined words on her shirt. “How should I feel about this?”
Caleb stood up and moved her hands from her shirt to her side. “You shouldn’t feel anything until you know how this is going to turn out.”
“How do you feel?”
‘Tell her.’ “I’m…feeling a lot of negative things right now, which doesn’t help our cause.”
Her hand flinched up to his cheek for only a moment before she mumbled lightly and removed it. “Don’t feel a thing, then. I’ll be back late, but if you do know before I come back, come find me. Please.”
“I promise, Alice.”
They both instinctively moved together, but Caleb intervened, touching her forehead with his while keeping the magnetism of their lips apart. She pushed off of him and walked out the door. ‘She’s not looking up. She probably won’t until she gets downtown.’
‘Can you blame her?’
‘I never can. She’s melting away a lot of things, but this brick of ice won’t go away. It just seeps into everything I do, telling me this or that is wrong. You’ve gotta know that.’
‘I know. I’ve been in that position much longer than you.’
Caleb walked into the kitchen. ‘Find a pen.’
‘What are you doing?’
A pen floated into his hand while the other held a piece of torn notebook paper. ‘I’ve done her wrong already….’
‘Stop.’
‘I won’t do her the wrong—’
‘Don’t!’
‘Of not saying good-bye.’
Caleb’s writing hand became paralyzed as a blue filter filled his eyes. ‘This is premature. This isn’t what’s supposed to happen.’
‘Why do you care? Every fiber of your being should be encouraging me to go through with this.’
‘I….’
‘See? This is our paradox. There is no reconciliation between us. No communication. We’re simply a hybrid. Because you’re so damn stubborn and I’m so damn crippled, we’re not what’s right for her.’
Power removed its influence from Caleb’s hand, suddenly unable to stand without doubt at its side.
---
Doctor Ancel opened the door slightly and tossed the small remote into Stephen’s lap. “Four minutes. I won’t expect you to come back.”
Stephen could almost hear the creak in his bones as he stood. “No faith?”
“I have faith in your ambition.”
With that, Ancel moved to the side and Stephen jammed half of the buttons at once.
- - -
Caleb landed lightly on the large cliff and adjusted the pack hanging off one shoulder. He attempted to engulf himself in power again, but found his speed remaining dismal. A cursory glance showed nobody around before he spoke. “Can’t do this alone.”
‘We’re going to work this out. We’re not leaving.’ Caleb’s eyes suddenly became hazed and his head felt light. His lids closed for only a moment and opened to a completely new scene; the stable grass and rock beneath his feet had become the narrow foul pole of an empty baseball stadium, overlooking the primed grass and the vacant, folded sea of red seats. He regained his balance before speaking. “There’s no wind. We’re not really here.”
“Were we ever?”
He looked over and up to see his power lounging on the metallic overhang, staring straight up to the starless, cloudless blank slate of night. “What do you mean?”
“Were we not here in every sense of the word with Alice?”
“Of course.”
“When were we ever completely aligned before that? Name one time.”
Caleb was suddenly flowing with the foul pole underneath his feet from memory to memory, back to reading and talking to Carol, to his power’s conflicts and Caleb’s solutions. “We never have.”
The entire spectrum changed again and the color was sapped from the scene. Silence became the nature around him and it; wherever they were inside the massive void that could not be measured or bounded was simply satisfied with its own existence. “What about here?”
Caleb remembered with his eyes open: Alice’s flowing dress suddenly appeared with no body, but the subtle outline of her form still filled all but the folded bottom which gracefully kicked in the windless black. “We were again.”
“Two completely different places: One with everybody and one with nobody. How were we aligned?”
“She was the only common factor.”
“So, maybe I do care for her. It seems reasonably possible that I care for her the same way you do. The realm of possibility even holds that I care for her as much as I cared for Carol.”
“You cared for her?”
“I was born when you thought you loved her, so I naturally cared immediately. I thought you could do no wrong. That’s why I hated you. That’s why I’ll always hate you, but it’s starting to seem more possible that Alice is the one thing we can care about together.”
They were both suddenly back to the grassy cliff. ‘There’s something in the city.’
Caleb turned to look at the glowing skyline only to see it shaded by a purple fog that seemed to blanket the entire city. ‘Stephen….’
‘He’s trying to find us.’
‘He’s a little off target then.’ Power zoomed in Caleb’s vision. ‘There’s a tiny green flame. He’s—’
‘Alice.’
He dropped down and hugged his knees, unleashing his mind. ‘We both care about her. It’s got to be perfect though it can’t be passing we can’t help her that way.’
‘Caleb, the only way we’re ever going to help anybody is with that girl at our side.’ He stared hard at the silhouette standing in front of him. ‘I’ll do good, I’ll do anything. Please, don’t make us go away from her.’
The look in its glowing eyes tipped Caleb’s mental scales. ‘We’ve solved the paradox, for the moment.’
‘You said we couldn’t.’
‘Well, we see now that there was never a paradox to begin with. There were just two things with broken hearts.’
‘You’re still broken.’
‘I know,’ Caleb stood up and threw the backpack away, ‘but now it’s possible to fix it.’
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
---
Alice threw away the paper plate after tossing the remnants of funnel cake to the strategically hidden squirrels and birds. “They’ll enjoy that. They should. I don’t want to make them fat though. Oh well, I’m sure they’ll appreciate the extra fat for next winter.”
“Alice, look!” She turned around to a massive stack of balloons being carried by a single man.
“Wow, they go higher
than the trees. Almost as high as that building! I wish…I wish Caleb was here.”
Alice felt a violent tug on her shoulder and was suddenly facing a large man. “Big, huge, look down. No eyes. Something’s flying off of him. It feels like the Prince. But how? That’s not Caleb. He doesn’t have shoes like those.”
“Shut up. You’re not Caleb.”
She looked up to his chest. “You know Caleb? He’s never mentioned you. Someone as big as you, or as mean.”
Her chin suddenly had his hand under it and was forced up. “You don’t shut up do you?”
The intense pressure from his fingers was suddenly released and her tightly closed eyes saw his feet suddenly perpendicular to her face. “The man flew away. Something…Caleb! There he goes. He got the man off me. No, he punched him back. Get him! I’ll help. I don’t know. Should I? What could I do? I…won’t sit by and watch.”
---
Caleb felt the cement rain in chunks against his shield of power as Stephen’s force crushed a grey slab of it easily. The emblazed man came back quickly for a second strike—‘Pressure, use small points, focused points to stop him like before,’—and was stopped as three accurate thrusts pushed on his shoulder and elbow, blocking the blow. Stephen continued to reload and fire in this manner as fast as Caleb could counter, all the while Power and Caleb ceased deliberation and were completely open to one another’s ideas. After a quick jab to their protective casing, Stephen lowered his shoulder and drove through them with everything he had. They were forced into and through a thin store front before Caleb could redirect Power to upend their momentum.
Caleb flipped over Stephen’s back, but hesitated in their next move for just long enough; Stephen reacted to the pause instantly by switching around and gathering a head of steam, tackling straight through Caleb and pushing them through a thicker wall on the other side of the street. Caleb’s footing was lost beneath the rubble but recovered when Power kept him in the air long enough to twist with its many hands and land on one knee. This action allowed Stephen enough time to regain himself and to fire a hook that caught them squarely in the jaw, smashing their head into the rubble at their feet. His head rang loudly, but Power was still alert enough to pull their body out of the way before Stephen’s finishing strike could land.