by Gann, Myles
The older man’s head had leaned forward for only a moment before settling back against the cushiony rest. “I never had a chance either.”
David suddenly stood up and walked swiftly past the chatting men. ‘Follow him.’
‘I am. Retract me when someone else is in the aisle so I can focus.’
Stanley slapped Caleb on the shoulder lightly and nodded to the turned, smiling Alice. “She beckons.”
Caleb stood and hopped into the aisle. “Never had a chance.” He took the stride forward quickly and his seat hastily. “Didn’t go too bad I take it?”
“Not at all. He just had some things to get off his chest.” She took his arm across her chest and lap before embracing it warmly. “Anytime you’re away from me now, your voice speaks my thoughts in my head. They’re always questions like I used to have before; always about when you’ll be back, where you went. I even knew you were five feet away, and still I could barely think enough to help David.”
‘He’s vomiting in the bathroom.’ A woman was walking quickly to their row, forcing Caleb to suck Power back within him. ‘There was a terrified look in his eyes.’
“He seems to be taking this new job quite seriously.”
“It’s what he does.” She looked up at him. “Didn’t like what I said?”
“I did, but I have no idea how to respond to that as Caleb.”
They smiled at each other while Alice’s eyes seemed to detach, her mind figuring the subtext of his sentence while her lips stayed with the unheralded task of constantly smiling to Alice’s beckon. “What if I were to ask Nobody?”
Caleb stretched his lips to match hers. “He might have a better response. I have a feeling he would say something along the lines of ‘then that careening path of thought would but justify to standing legs the need to never move anywhere without you again,’ or something similar.”
“No he wouldn’t. That’s still you.”
“I know.”
“You said you’d tell the truth.”
He smiled still. “Five feet is too great a distance.”
Her smile was softened then; her eyes grown wide while small traces of white teeth shone beneath her stretched lips, and the deepening iris of each mind’s window developed a moment of sparkle from the moist surface and into the singularity where all points converge.
“We will be landing very soon if you will all fasten your seatbelts and secure all loose items….”
Caleb was startled as David’s hand fell softly to his shoulder attached to, “Excuse me.” He moved past Alice and sat with the window. ‘He doesn’t look that bad.’
‘He’s hiding his eyes. That’s where all the juicy secrets are.’
‘Do you really think he could hide something from Alice and you?’
‘He’s been telling the truth so far, of that I’m sure.’
‘But….’
‘It’s in no way the whole truth.’
‘Oxymorons aside, let the guy be. I let you get your curiosity satisfied, so now we owe him a little alone time with his thoughts.’
‘That’s not how I work.’
‘It is how this will work.’
Caleb felt pressure against his chest, and saw Alice handing him his bag from the carrousel. “Whoa. Lost some time there.”
“Did you find it yet?”
“Yeah, I’m back.” They exited after Caleb and Stanley exchanged pleasant smiles, and Alice suddenly thrust a New York Times into his chest. “What do I want with this?”
“It’s a New York Times, in New York. That’s kind of awesome isn’t it?”
“In the same way that being fat is fun if you do it in America.”
David turned back up to the curb Caleb and Alice stood upon. “Actually the obesity epidemic subsided somewhat about eight years ago. We’re not exactly on our way to the skinniest nation in the world, but it’s become more manageable.”
Caleb smiled down. “That’s a plus.” ‘See, his eyes are completely clear now.’
‘He has to be in complete denial. It’s impossible to change emotions that quickly.’
‘Not impossible, but I’m trending to agree with you on the denial part.’
Caleb and Alice sat on a bench behind the crowd of people looking and raising their hands to the street of yellow taxis. “Looks like the war’s end is going to dominate headlines for quite a while.”
“Isn’t that sad?”
“The war?”
“No, look at the bottom right there.”
His eyes maneuvered down quickly. ‘Oldest preacher in New York State dies at eighty-nine…blah, blah, blah…Lawrence…ah c’mon.’ Her hands took the paper as he dropped it into his lap. “I knew him.”
“From before?”
Caleb felt a weight on his chest that he worked mightily to move. “Yeah. My mom used to go to his service, and recruited him to try and change me into a believer.”
Her hands were suddenly all around his face. “I’m so sorry, Caleb.”
‘There goes the last of your past. Rejoice.’
‘My past was always gone, and I guess it was his time to go.’
He looked around. “I should to go see his son.”
“You knew him too?”
“He visited me before. Do you mind?”
David held his arms up. “We’re leaving if you two plan on joining.”
Alice stood up and hailed another cab. “We need to go somewhere else. We’ll meet you at Central Park when we’re done. Call us okay?”
“What? Alice, I’ve….” Caleb looked up as David’s head fell and looked around; his chest and back could be seen breathing heavily. ‘There it goes again.’ “I’ll call you.”
The cab pulled up as David’s pulled away.
- - -
“Any coffee, or anything?”
“No, we’re good.” Caleb gently traced a golden frame along the outskirts of a crop of them. “This was before my senior year at a church picnic,” he said to Alice over his shoulder.
“You were a favorite photo subject of his, actually,” Kain said as he wrapped his body around the corner. He waved them down a slender hallway and into the light of a living room. ‘Baby toys in the corner next to a rocking chair. Regular, blue couch directly across from a closed sliding door with open vertical shades and grey walls across the board in either direction. Alice isn’t comfortable, but she seems entertained with the baby corner.’ Caleb turned towards the sitting Kain. “It’s nice of you to stop by. Is it safe?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s been all cleared up. Just in town for something completely different and saw the section in the newspaper.”
“I wasn’t even aware of that. The wife’s the news-reader.” Kain’s eyes travelled over to Alice. “Sorry, miss, you are?”
Alice twirled back into the conversation and smiled widely. “Alice.”
“Girlfriend Alice.”
Kain stood and met her halfway with a handshake. “Really?”
“Yeah, knew you’d find that interesting.”
He sat back down and laughed slowly. “I guess things have been pretty good since we last met then?”
Caleb smiled sympathetically. “A lot has happened, but the good seems here to stay finally.”
“How did he die?”
Kain and Caleb both looked towards Alice, whose eyes had assumed a sad, nearly tearful look. “Peacefully.”
Both occupants of the couch nodded while the son in the chair folded one leg across the other. Caleb brought his hands over his lap as he leaned forward and found himself smiling. “He got to see a lot of the important things didn’t he? Your birth, school, wedding; that sounds like a great life for a father to live with his son.”
Kain smiled a little before looking away; his eyes drifted through the open blinds and seemed to track along a distant cloud. “What did he see of yours?”
“My baptism where I boiled the water, my mother’s funeral where I almost went crazy, then at my graduation when I actually did
go crazy and had the speech to prove it. That’s about it.”
Kain smiled wider. “You never did tell me about graduation.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
He looked between Alice and Kain and smiled. “Where’s his computer?”
“The desk in the office why?”
“Because I guarantee you he still has a copy of my speech. Maybe that’ll show you what I mean.”
They all stood up and quickly walked into the other room. As Kain sat down and brought the computer to life, Caleb kept the conversation running between movements. “How’s school been going?”
“Off today…,” Kain quickly clicked in the password and found the file. “Would you like to do the honor of reading it to us?”
“It’s the middle of the week.” The son held his head down and inflated his lips while they tightly held against one another. Caleb didn’t bother to lean as he read from memory. “‘I hope you have heard this before. I hope it is engrained into your senses. I hope that you have learned everything you could possibly learn from it, and that you will hear it again simply for the entertainment. Those that have known it is not a short story. It is simple, and it is apparent. They would have you believe otherwise. They would want it to dance, to sing, to juggle and cavort, but they do not know this story. We have lived this story and have never known. We have always known the truth, but never been able to grasp it. Everybody has heard it, but nobody is ever known for it.’”
Alice applauded lightly while Kain looked up and smiled. “You really sent a strange message there.”
“I said what needed to be said at the time.”
“Like things have improved at all.”
“Have you heard of a little war that’s finally ended?”
“Yeah, and now the real problems finally can come around. We’ve already seen our own dollar bills pass through the circle of economic trade six times, and now the rebuilding will see it pass another nine times twice as fast.”
“But things can be better now,” Alice injected. “Everybody can make things better now.”
“I’m sorry, but no, things will not be getting better anytime soon. There’s too much to fix too soon. Nobody can perform miracles like that.”
Caleb pulled out the rolling chair and sat a few feet from both Kain and Alice. “Why aren’t you in school today?”
Kain leaned forward with his hands rubbing through is short hair. “My presentation is in three months, and I have simply run out of stuff to write about since you’ve fallen off the map.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
He recoiled and breathed deeply. “It’s not your fault. It’s just the timing of everything. No, it’s the context of everything. I can’t find th-the overwhelming theme of it all. I’m smart, I know that, and staring at problems helps me focus on them and brings out the answer almost always, especially in this stuff, but nothing’s coming out of it, nothing at all.”
Caleb leaned forward and spoke calmly. “If you force an answer out of the actions, you will get the wrong one. Maybe there’s something else that needs to happen before you can see it all.”
“Or maybe it’s already happened.”
He smiled up to Alice before pulling up the homepage of the internet on the late father’s computer. Appearing was one of the millions of variations of “war” and “over,” and Caleb simply smiled; a coy, cautious movement that could barely be noticed from any sideways angle, but Kain was directly ahead of him: his perception was uninhibited. The younger man gently raised his finger and wagged it between the screen and Caleb’s curt face. “You?”
“He did. In a day.”
“You didn’t sign it with any of your names. How will anybody know?”
“That’s the point,” Caleb recited calmly. “But, I’m telling you so you have something to give to that larger idea of yours.”
“How would I ever be able to prove it?”
Caleb sat back. “I don’t think it’s really about proving anything. This entire project seems to be more about believing that the right thing is out there and it can be acted upon, and that when it’s acted upon, incredible things can happen. If that’s the case, then you’ve compiled all the fuel you’ll need for this.”
Kain laughed again. “It is about that, but there has to be somebody to filter it through. Somebody to…act upon what is good and to repel what is bad. Show us what’s right and what’s wrong.” Alice placed her hand on Caleb’s shoulder as his smile widened. “If you’d ever come forward, I’d have my guy.”
“Sorry, but this doesn’t work like that. You shouldn’t be worried about that anyways. If you find the idea, that will be enough to show everyone that the right thing is worth fighting for.”
- - -
David walked up to the window with a tremendous view. His hands were shaking as he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket. The retrieved parcel—small, cylindrical, silver—was clutched between his pointer and thumb.
Around him, people performed their duties of the moment, a moment that would pass into another moment, but find such a jar that the memory would either live forever, or be lost in a ringing haze.
A small blue light emanated from the outward end of the object in short bursts. One blink, followed by two quick ones, and three slower ones, seen from miles away through a tremendous scope before the object skittered to the tiled floor and David began to walk briskly for the stairwell.
---
“These two jogging up.”
Caleb closed his eyes behind the dark shades on his nose and calmly jostled Power into position to follow the slowly moving older couple. Power sighed through the cylinder of variant waves between him and Caleb before reporting, “One’s talking in the New York accent about lampshade designs while the other enthusiastically responds. She used to be a sparkling redhead, and apparently wants something to bring her back to the glory days. In a lampshade…. They live together. Ah, they’re an older lesbian couple. Alice would’ve surely seen that in their smile.”
“I’m ready whenever you are.”
Caleb opened his eyes while keeping his power slightly extended. “Go for it.”
“The one on the right really has a crush with the woman on the left, and the woman on the left is ready to take it to the next level, but neither one of them are brave enough to do anything beyond sex adventures.”
“How did you go down that path?”
‘They are wearing lipstick on a jog,’ Power said as it retracted.
“They’re wearing lipstick while jogging, and they have the same comfort level as you and I when it comes to physical stuff. Maybe a little more because I’m a pansy.”
Caleb smiled from his squatted position atop the new, dedicated bench and adjusted his deeply black glasses. “Or because we’re not about that.”
She wandered back from the path as the two ladies of focus passed by with a mutual laugh. “That could be it too. Tell me how close I was.”
“I think you were closer than they were willing to talk about in Central Park.”
“Did they have the accents?”
“It said they did.”
“Then tell him he did a good job.”
‘My pleasure.’
“Its pleasure.” A massive, grey wave suddenly struck against the side of his tiny field and caused everything to retract completely. The sides wavered heavily against the unsuspected force and had both entities wincing in pain. Caleb looked up into the sky as quickly as his head would allow. ‘A jet engine?’
‘That seems right. It’s flying very close to the ground with that sonic boom.’
Caleb felt Alice over his shoulder as they both watched a low flying jet—‘Weapons on the underside, and just barely clearing these building tops,’—turn the heads of several thousand people. “It’s not going to clear the Empire State building. It’s flying right at it, Caleb.”
His power exploded from his body; an arm flung Alice to his back while his legs instantly felt the rush o
f blue and red blood. He kept to the streets, but ran atop the cars and any other suitable obstacle his mind could quickly locate and facilitate to his pushing legs. As the greenery of Central Park gave way to the shades of industry, the jet suddenly turned hard to the right, detaching something from its underbelly, the metallic shine glistening even from miles away as it wrapped around three sides of the middle of the large structure. Caleb pushed faster and tightened his grip on Alice until they were six blocks away. The explosion began its chain of resounding percussions, and when the pieces of the building began falling carelessly to the streets below, Caleb dropped Alice safely behind a car before leaping into the air. His bodily heave brought him two blocks closer, and he erupted; every bit of bright blue he could muster came flowing onto the streets until a cocoon was weaved with tremendous speed around the falling building, preventing the debris from spreading the massive wave of dust any further. His blue shell towered to the heights of the cresting plume for three blocks away on all sides.
He looked up when the worst of the resistance had passed, and saw Stephen standing from the cockpit of the hovering tool, his grin wide with delivered malice while his eyes pointed to the delivery of some message. Power instinctively reached for the wing of the contraption, but the bold man pushed forward on the accelerator while sitting quickly. Before the stretch of Power could elasticize enough, he was completely out of reach.
“Damn him!”
Caleb shook his head and quickly held out his hand, retracting Power slowly from the settled volcano of fallen rubble. As soon as the blue was reeled back to Caleb’s body, everybody behind him was in action. It was moments until the entire scene was alive with sirens and flashes of lights, all nearly drowned out by the shouts of desperate people attempting whatever rescue they could for the people trapped within. Caleb pushed past all of them. “Back off the rubble! Get some huge dump trucks out here now! Have the people clear an area all around here!” The blue sparked from his body again with the mist of dust shrouding all but the field and eyes of Caleb. Power muscled and blew the thick pathogens from the immediate vicinity and both entities began lifting. A large chunk of rubble flew up from beneath the feet of a few wayward onlookers, and three people began crawling from beneath the suspended cement. “Everyone’s moving now. Over to the right there’s an empty space.” Power levitated the chunk slowly back to the ground while continuing the work at hand.