by Jeff Wood
Robert takes the joint, cautiously.
SAMSON
And call this number. It may benefit you. Just make a reservation.
Sam hands Robert a black business card embossed with silver letters. It reads: Event Horizon.
Robert hesitates a moment longer.
ROBERT
(sheepishly)
How do you know?
SAMSON
How do I know what?
ROBERT
If it kills you, then how do you know what it does? Before that, I mean.
Samson grins.
SAMSON
Now that would be something of a conundrum, wouldn’t it?
***
The surveyor’s Chevy Suburban travels down a cold country road on its way to the next job site.
Gunner drives. Sue rides shotgun and fusses with the radio, searching for a station. Jonah sits in the backseat, looking out the window at the passing countryside and making notes in his notebook.
Gunner adjusts his rearview mirror.
GUNNER
You sure don’t say much, do you?
SUE
What?
GUNNER
Not you, Nancy. It’s no wonder you don’t have a girlfriend.
From the backseat, Jonah sees Gunner looking at him in the rearview mirror.
JONAH
What?
GUNNER
Are you guys deaf?
SUE
Leave him alone, Gunner.
GUNNER
I’ve noticed that you’re always writing stuff down.
JONAH
Oh? Yeah, here and there. Just making some notes…
GUNNER
That’s what I just said.
Gunner watches him in the mirror.
GUNNER
What are you writing?
JONAH
Aw, I don’t know. Just thoughts, observations. Poems. They’re kind of difficult to explain.
GUNNER
That doesn’t sound so difficult. Give it a shot. We like poems, don’t we, Sue? We’re not completely stupid.
SUE
Yeah, sure. I mean, no.
JONAH
No, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just not sure how to explain them.
GUNNER
Well why don’t you read something for us?
SUE
Oh, Gunner, would you leave him alone.
GUNNER
I’m just making conversation.
SUE
Well, quit being an asshole.
GUNNER
I’m not being an asshole. He said he writes things down. I’m just curious what he writes down.
SUE
Did you ever think that maybe it’s none of your business?
GUNNER
If it were my business then I wouldn’t have to ask about it.
SUE
Well maybe if you weren’t such an asshole to begin with—
Gunner slams on the brakes. Sue slams into the dash, spilling coffee all over the windshield as Jonah slams into the back of Sue’s seat. The truck screeches to a halt in the middle of the road.
GUNNER
There. Now I’m being an asshole. I wanna hear what he has to say. It’s not gonna kill us, is it? Now read.
JONAH
But it’s just, uh…
Jonah reluctantly flips through a few pages.
Gunner turns around in his seat.
GUNNER
I said read, goddammit. Read!
Jonah quickly chooses a passage and in his smooth Midwestern drawl, reads.
JONAH
—from a singularity on that line dividing silence from complexity. It came like a great tide, sweeping them away. A continual, invisible explosion of white heat particles twinkling and glittering in the ether between entropy and determination. Suspended and informed somehow, and brutally awake. A throbbing nerve node. Arced-mass breathing in the curvature of space as if released from its cage of flesh and skull in one precise flash. Titanium veins pounding with incandescent armies of nano-teleology. Bursting vessels of—
SUE
(cutting in, quickly)
Well I’d say that is a little different. No offense. Gunner, would you mind if we kept moving here?
GUNNER
Read some more.
Sue huffs and rolls his eyes. Jonah glances nervously between the two men and then continues.
JONAH
In the zone of twilight between the deep past and the deep future, we are living our deaths and dreaming our lives. Across the ecstatic memory of the present how could it be otherwise? Hunt like a swallow in the last cavity of evening light because dusk is forgiveness and the fire in the tree is burning down heaven.
The men are quiet. The radio snows a soft flurry of static. Jonah shifts uncomfortably. Gunner gently switches off the radio.
He clears his throat.
GUNNER
Say that last part again.
JONAH
Um… the fire in the tree is burning down heaven. Beauty and cruelty are so close together that they can’t see each other. For this we should be grateful that they are so close together. Death is laughing.
The truck is quiet.
Jonah reconsiders the last line—
JONAH
(to himself)
Hmm.
—and makes a note in his book.
GUNNER
Get out of the truck.
SUE
What?
GUNNER
You heard me. Both of you get out of the truck. Now.
SUE
What the hell for?!
GUNNER
(fiercely)
Get out of the goddamn truck!
SUE
All right, all right! Criminy!
At a loss, Sue climbs out of the truck in a passive aggressive fit. Jonah follows.
SUE
Good lord, Gunner, what has got into you?
GUNNER
Move away. Over there.
SUE
Hell…
They move away from the vehicle and stand in the gravel on the side of the road, kicking at the cold stones. The truck idles.
Gunner sits in the driver’s seat, staring down at some buried consideration. He looks up and through the windshield.
The road stretches out before him in a long line that eventually disappears into the trees. Just up the road a deer-crossing sign shifts slightly in the light breeze. A murder of crows shouts out across the winter field.
Gunner looks out the driver-side window, across the road, across the winter cornfield, and way out in the middle of the field, he sees himself, as a mud man, standing naked and covered in pale mud paint, staring back at himself.
GUNNER
All right, let’s go.
Jonah and Sue hesitate, not so sure.
GUNNER
Well, come on.
They climb back into the truck and Gunner pulls away.
The fields beyond the road are empty, quiet, and still.
***
A small storage room is filled with droning fluorescent lights. Thousands of salt and pepper shakers are lined up on metal shelves from floor to ceiling.
Simone stands at her cart, filling salt shakers with salt. The room is deathly quiet, so quiet that the sound of pouring salt is quite loud.
A flickering fluorescent light interrupts her and she stops to watch it. Then she returns to work. Salt pouring like sand through an hourglass.
***
A country road runs through a stretch of trees.
The Chevy Suburban pulls over and parks on the side of the road. Jonah, Gunner, and Sue hop out and unload some gear from the back of the truck. The winter woods are naked and still. The men are pensive and quiet before the landscape.
Sue scopes out the area and then speaks.
SUE
All right, we’re gonna run a line through these woods and out the other side. Gunner, we got an exi
sting elevation somewhere so let’s find that and set up here. Visibility shouldn’t be too bad with the leaves down so you just head straight out in there about a ways and then give us a call.
JONAH
How far?
SUE
(irritably)
I said about a ways. Couple hundred yards.
Jonah heads off into the woods with his surveyor’s rod.
The trees are bare of leaves but the forest is thick with brown winter brambles and vines.
Jonah tramps through the undergrowth, blending in with the wintry foliage in his brown construction coveralls. He counts out paces under his breath, slowly ducking and weaving through the brush, pushing branches aside, stepping over downed trunks, and crunching across a layer of frozen fallen leaves.
When he reaches his count, he stops and slowly waves the red and white striped prism rod back and forth above his head. He speaks into the walkie-talkie.
JONAH
You got me?
GUNNER
(on the radio)
Hang on. Yeah. Got you.
He drives his surveyor’s rod into the ground.
GUNNER
(on the radio)
Shooting.
Jonah waits. The trees are quiet. He scans the forest. A woodpecker taps on a walnut tree.
He looks in another direction and is surprised to discover an animal very close to him, only a few yards away. A buck deer is lying quietly on the ground. Strangely, the buck is just watching him, either unafraid, or unable to move.
Jonah slowly walks away from the surveyor’s rod stuck in the ground and approaches the deer. It struggles to its feet, wounded. A bullet wound leaks blood from its side.
Jonah carefully creeps toward the deer. He reaches out a hand. Closer…
And then his radio erupts with a burst of static—
GUNNER
(on the radio)
All right, got the shot! Hang tight.
Jonah quickly silences the radio but the buck takes off, disappearing into the forest.
***
Robert pours himself a hot cup of tea and sits down at the kitchen table. He wears his favorite jogging suit.
He examines the joint that Samson gave him. His cup of tea steaming quietly on the table. He lights the joint with a match, and inhales, and coughs horrendously.
Then he relaxes a little and smokes some more. He sits back in his chair, smoking. He rubs his face and loosens up his neck muscles. He takes a sip of tea. And he smiles a funny little smile.
He examines the black and silver business card which reads Event Horizon and a phone number. He goes to the phone and dials the number. It’s a brooding 1970s push-button wall phone.
ROBERT
Hello? Yes. I would, uh, I’d like to make a reservation, please. Uh huh. Robert Adams. Yes. Adams. Okay. Uh huh. All right. I see. Okay. Thank you. Goodbye.
He hangs up the phone and stands there for a second, lost in the face panel of the old phone. He lifts the phone off the receiver just an inch or so, floating it, listening to the dial tone. Then he floats it next to his head, listening to the dial tone arcing invisibly between the handset and his ear.
He holds his other hand up before the keypad and positions his fingers to dial. He slowly probes in the air with his fingers, searching like a spider for a number to dial.
But there is no one to call. He hangs up the phone and sits back down next to the kitchen table. He stares at the floor, at an odd angle, nursing a little paranoia, and settles back into the horrifyingly infinite quiet of the kitchen.
He remembers his tea and takes a sip, but he inadvertently snickers and almost forces tea out his nose. He snickers again, struggling not to spit out his tea when— CHIRBONK.
Robert hears a sudden sound at the window. He swallows his tea and listens attentively.
THUNK. FFFFLLLLLLLKUNK.
He goes to the kitchen window to have a look. BONK! Startled, he recoils as something hits the window. He looks again, cautiously. WHAM. Something is flying into the window
He goes to another window. SLAM. THUNK.
Red birds are flying into his windows.
Robert crosses into the other room. He opens the curtains at the large window. Nothing. Then—
THUNK UNK UNK UNK UNK UNK UNK UNK…
The house is under assault. A storm of kamikaze cardinals. Hundreds of red birds hurl themselves into the windows.
Robert stumbles backward, falls over the couch and hides behind it, covering his head and ears.
THUNK UNK UNK UNK UNK UNK UNK UNK UNK UNK UNK UNK.
Then, like a bag of microwave popcorn…
THUNK. THUNK UNK. THUNK.
The storm stops.
Robert opens the front door and cautiously peeks outside. The coast seems to be clear. A dead cardinal is lying on the front steps. Then he sees the rest of them.
Looking down from above, the house is surrounded by a moat of red. Red birds are piled like roses, circling the house. The house sits inside a ring of red, a square inside a circle.
***
Jonah moves quietly through the trees, deeper into the woods. He counts out paces and finds his next point. He shoves the surveyor’s rod into the ground and jockeys with the radio.
JONAH
You got me?
GUNNER
(on the radio)
Hang on. Wave it around a little.
Jonah waves the surveyor’s rod slowly back and forth.
GUNNER
(on the radio)
All right, got it. Let’s shoot it.
He holds the rod steady.
GUNNER
(on the radio)
Shooting. All right. Got the shot. Coming to you.
Jonah releases the rod and waits. He has another look at the forest. Bare branches compose themselves in black fractal patterns against the sky. Roots crawl across the tapestry of earth and fallen leaves. Micro-canyons of bark and crisscrossed timbers. Evergreen needles.
He spies a pinecone lying on the ground. He picks it up and examines it. It’s a nice one. Big and full and complete. He turns it in his fingers, admiring the perfectly irregular radial symmetry.
Suddenly the pinecone releases an electrical charge, shocking him, and he drops it.
***
The fluorescent lights of the Convention Center flicker on and off over Simone’s head in the small industrial room. She looks up from her salt and pepper shakers.
***
Baffled, Jonah watches the pinecone lying inertly on the ground.
He picks it up again. The pinecone comes alive, pulsating with electric-blue light, like a bug-zapper. Now it has him with its current and he can’t let go. He reaches out with his other hand and grabs the metal surveyor’s rod stuck in the ground.
The entire forest around him comes alive, exploding with electric-blue light. Tendrils of electricity arc across roots in the ground, spiralling up the trunks of trees and then crowning. The current jumps from tree to tree until the entire canopy of branches is humming, buzzing, and crackling with radiant blue light.
***
BZZZT— The lights go out completely and Simone is in the dark.
***
Gunner and Sue are tromping through the undergrowth, dodging brown branches and briars. Sue is marking trees with a can of orange spray paint.
SUE
Gunner, listen. I know this has been a hard time for you. I want you to know that I am truly sorry about the farm. I know how much of a blow it was and I know it isn’t any easier considering the nature of the work we’ve been doing.
TSSSST. He marks another tree with paint.
SUE
But we’ve got good jobs. We get to work outside, not in some sterile office. That’s who we are. We’re outside dogs. And I think it’s kind of exciting. We’re out here on the frontier, cutting trail. We’re drawing the map and I think that’s kind of neat—
Gunner stops abruptly and Sue crashes into him.
&nbs
p; SUE
Whoa! Sorry…
Gunner holds up his hand to silence Sue.
SUE
What’s the matter?
GUNNER
Quiet.
SUE
(whispering)
What? What is it?
GUNNER
Do you hear something?
Sue listens.
SUE
No.
GUNNER
Do you smell anything?
SUE
Like what?
GUNNER
Some funny smell.
Sue smells, delicately probing the air with his nostrils.
SUE
I don’t think so.
GUNNER
Well do you or don’t you?
SUE
Well, I don’t know! What kind of smell is it?
GUNNER
Something burning. It smells like something’s burning.
Gunner moves on and Sue follows on after him.
***
Jonah stands at the center of the brilliant blue spectacle with one hand on the surveyor’s rod and his other hand unable to release the pinecone. He quivers and shakes, conducting the massive electric current as it contracts his muscles, fries his nerves, and lights up the entire woods.
By the time Gunner and Sue arrive at Jonah, he’s standing in a funny position with the surveyor’s rod in one hand and a pinecone in the other. His eyes are rolled back up in his head. Otherwise, the forest around them is calm and normal. They watch him for a moment and exchange glances with each other.
GUNNER
What are you doing?
Jonah drops the pinecone.
From Jonah’s perspective, the network of electric blue current evaporates from the forest. He snaps out of it, startled and dazed.
JONAH
Oh— Wow. What?
GUNNER
What were you doing?
JONAH
Um. Nothing. I mean— Just having a look around.
GUNNER
Huh.
SUE
Well let’s keep moving.
JONAH
Yeah. Yeah, let’s keep moving.
Jonah grabs his surveyor’s rod and takes off into the trees.
Sue watches after him, dubiously, and Gunner examines the pinecone.
***
The fluorescent lights come back on in the salt and pepper room. Simone is standing at her cart of salt shakers. She looks up at the long bulbs.
She steps out into the hallway and looks in both directions. The long pink corridor is empty. A fluorescent light flickers way down at the end of the hallway.
She steps back into the room and returns to her work at the salt and pepper station.
MR. STEVENS