Touching Cottonwood

by Randall Simpson

  “Thanks for seeing me,” said Akash as he sat down on the one unused chair from the table. He found the lid to the whisky bottle; he pulled it from under his thigh and set it on the table.

  “No problem,” said the agent. “I guess you should just be glad that I can still see you—if you get my drift.” He smiled, raised his glass in a mock toast, and took a sip.

  Akash looked over toward the obnoxiously loud television. “You mind if I turn that down?” he asked.

  “Whatever you want, my friend,” said the agent.

  Akash couldn’t see the remote anywhere, so he quickly got up, turned the television off manually, and sat back down. “As I said, Agent Westmore, I really need some advice from you.”

  “First of all…Akash…please, call me David. It seems like certain others are doing that, and I think it would be a real crime…if you didn’t do the same. You’re my friend, after all.”

  “Sure, if that’s what you’d like. David, I need your advice. I’ve sort of…come to a place in my investigation of the Dead Zone…where I think I’ve drawn an important conclusion.”

  The agent lifted his glass in another mock toast. “A conclusion! I’ll drink to that!” He took a sip. “But, of course, right now I’ll drink to just about anything.” He wiped a bit of whiskey dribbling from his chin. “So, what’s your conclusion, Einstein?”

  Akash ignored the comment and took a deep breath. “As I told you last night, I think the Cottonwood Dead Zone has been created by someone, and I think it will be more productive for me to begin looking for who that might be.”

  Akash was waiting for some response, but Agent Westmore only stared at him for a moment. Akash was concerned Agent Westmore might be ready to pass out, but then he answered. “Did you find somethin’ down in that hole?” asked the agent.

  “No. It was a bust.”

  “I told you there was only dirt down there.”

  “Yes, I know you told me that—and that’s why I’m here. In shifting my investigation from what is going on to who might have caused it, I want to get your advice about where to start looking for possible…suspects.”

  The agent finished taking a sip. “Suspects?” he asked, looking at Akash. “And why in hell do you think I can help you figure out who caused this mess? I look for criminals. Do you think a criminal has caused it?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t know if they could be considered a criminal exactly, but I was hoping you might give me some advice. I’m good at researching scientific clues for scientific answers—you’re good at finding people. I need some general advice in that area.”

  The agent reached out with a shaky hand and passed Akash his empty glass. “You mind fillin’ this up for me?” he asked.

  Akash added a few of the melting ice cubes and filled the glass with whiskey. He handed it back to Agent Westmore, who immediately took a long sip and then looked at Akash.

  “The first thing,” began the agent, “when lookin’ for a ‘who’ in any crime, is to ask yourself about their motivation. Who has a reason to do the crime? Who benefits from it? Who might be driven by some passion or strong desire to do it?”

  Akash remained silent and attentive, though he noticed that David’s T-shirt looked stained and was now getting more whiskey than the agent’s mouth.

  “So, if you are now lookin’ for a who in this great Cottonwood Dead Zone mystery,” continued the agent, “then you should start by askin’ who might benefit by seeing all these god-damn cars shut down?”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” said Akash. “I mean, nobody benefits by seeing all the traffic in a town shut down—do they?”

  “But it wasn’t all the traffic though, was it?” asked the agent. “How the hell did we get here?”

  “Right,” said Akash after a pause. “Just the internal-combustion vehicles, so it would seem.”

  “Correct you are. So maybe it was the damn electric-car companies,” said the agent, slurring his speech more than ever.

  Akash couldn’t tell if it was the whiskey talking or if the agent was making fun of him. “You don’t mean that seriously, do you?” asked Akash.

  “Ah, you picked up on my humor,” said the agent. “You are truly my friend, as my first wife never got it—God bless her.” He made another mock toast, took a sip, and was quiet for a moment.

  Akash watched him, checking to make sure the agent’s eyes were still open.

  “Fuck no, I don’t think it was the electric-car companies,” blurted out Agent Westmore suddenly, jolting Akash. “Because you know what, I can save you a whole lot of trouble in your little investigation—just like good ol’ Sheriff what’s-his-name saved me all the trouble by arresting my man before I got here.” The agent looked at Akash with his watery and blood-shot eyes. “You see, Einstein,” he continued, “it’s pretty damn ironic that you’re coming to me for help, when I’m just a dumb, former street cop…but it’s okay, because I already know who the who is in your little mystery.”

  Akash looked at the agent sitting on the bed in his whiskey-stained T-shirt and felt foolish for having come to the room. “Perhaps, David, you are now too drunk for conversation—or are you just mocking me?” asked Akash.

  The agent let out a laugh. “You think I’m mocking you? Why would I do that? I don’t even know you well enough for that.”

  Akash got up from his chair. “Maybe we can talk tomorrow when you haven’t had so much to drink.”

  Before Akash had taken two steps, the agent blurted out, “I haven’t had enough to drink! I’m drinkin’ because I know who caused this whole damn thing! The asshole knows stuff he shouldn’t know….”

  Agent Westmore stopped and reached across his bed toward the nightstand, spilling a bit of whiskey on the sheets in the process. He picked up a tiny box that was resting there. “You know what this is?” he asked, holding up the box.

  Akash eyed the box. “It looks like a small box,” he replied after a moment.

  The agent tossed the box to Akash, who barely caught it as the throw was quite bad. “Open it,” snapped the agent.

  Akash carefully opened the box and looked inside. It was empty. “Was something supposed to be in this box?” he asked.

  The agent smiled. “Oh, you don’t see it, Professor? You think that box is empty?” His voice was now sarcastic, almost angry. “That box contains the cause of your Dead Zone.”

  Akash snapped the box shut and set in on the table. “Thank you for that information, David. I should be going now.”

  As Akash was heading for the door, the agent snipped, “You don’t fuckin’ believe me, because you can’t see it! But I can see it! You’re blind! Your big ol’ empty hole in the ground didn’t contain the cause of your Dead Zone, but this tiny empty box did! You just can’t see the connections, can you?”

  Akash stopped and turned. “You’re drunk, David. I can see the connections quite fine. The alcohol in your brain is making you delirious, and in a few minutes, you’ll pass out and wake up tomorrow with a terrible headache. Those are the only connections I need to see. Good night.” Akash moved once more toward the door, and just as he was reaching for the doorknob, Agent Westmore blurted out:

  “It was Matthew Duncan!”

  Akash paused for a moment, opened the door, and stepped into the hallway.

  “He was at the corner near Second and Main when this whole god-damn thing started!” screamed the agent.

  A room service attendant, who was picking up a tray from in front of the door across the hall, glanced up briefly as Akash fully closed the door. Both of them could hear something hit the wall near the door. Akash guessed it was the whiskey glass, and he smiled at the concerned attendant. “My friend is a bit drunk, but everything is okay. He’ll be fine in the morning.”

  Akash turned and headed to his room in another part of the hotel. Once there, Akash paced back and forth, deriding himself for going to a drunken man’s room in the first place. He then derided himself for getting so upset. He was a
technical man—a man of science. He needed to stay dispassionate and reasonable at all times. It was a foolish idea to have tried to enlist the support of a non-technical person to help in the investigation—and a drunken one at that! He wouldn’t make that mistake again. He resolved himself to pore back over the data—or even gather new data, if necessary. He was convinced there must be some small detail he had somehow missed….

  Something else Akash had missed were the words mixed with tears that Agent Westmore had said out loud in his empty room after Akash had left. After he’d thrown the whiskey glass, shattering it against the wall and staining it with the last few amber drops of spirits diluted with melted ice, David Westmore picked up the small jewelry box from the table. Staring down into the vacant space of the box—seeing what eyes alone could never see in that emptiness—through blurry, tear-soaked eyes, he said, “I…don’t…want…to…believe…don’t…want…to…believe….” He then dropped the box on the floor, lay back on his bed, and passed out.

  Seventy-Seven

  Matthew

  One of the most startling scientific discoveries of the twentieth century was the unexpected discovery by physicists that ordinary everyday matter, the stuff that makes up things like chairs, tables, doors, and even people, is primarily composed of absolutely nothing at all. Looking very closely inside the atomic building blocks that make up matter—one finds mainly empty space. The ordinary world of matter is predominantly open and empty space.

  It is only because of the fact that the particles moving around inside of atoms, namely the electrons, are moving so rapidly that things appear to be solid at all. This illusionary effect is not unlike the spinning of a bicycle tire. The spokes of a tire actually take up a very small amount of the empty space at the center of the tire, but when you spin the tire rapidly enough, it is difficult, if not impossible, to pass a finger through the spokes; however, if you stop the motion or spinning of the tire, a finger can pass through effortlessly. Likewise, if one wanted to pass a finger through a rapidly spinning tire, one could simply synchronize their finger with the motion of the tire—tracking it around at the same speed and then passing the finger through at will. In theory then, any so-called material object could pass through any other object, if the two objects were somehow synchronized together like the finger following the spinning tire around.

  There is another interesting effect that could, again in theory, be achieved by using the fact that atoms are primarily made up of nothing at all. One object could be made invisible to a particular observer if from the observer’s perspective that object’s atomic motions were to suddenly stop or freeze. This effect would be relative to each particular observer. One observer might see the spinning bicycle tire, while another might see the space between the spokes—it would simply depend on their relative perspective.

  Through the narrow window of his holding cell, flashes of lightning completely lit up the small room, followed by the rumble of thunder a few moments later. Matthew rested on his cot, his handcuffed hands resting on his stomach. He listened to the rain dancing on the roof of the building, in between the thunder. He thought of the days of his childhood and memories of watching such storms with his parents. In the summer months, strong thunderstorms would move across the mountains from the west—directly into the valley where Cottonwood was nestled. If the storms came at night, he and his parents would turn off all the lights in the house and cuddle together on the couch near the large picture window in their living room. There they would enjoy the splendor and mystery of nature’s fireworks.

  During those times, the curious young Matthew would frequently ask his parents about the nature of the lightning and thunder. It seemed so mysterious and even alive to him.

  “It’s the clouds bumping together” or “It’s God bowling,” his mother would usually reply. “The lightning flashes every time he gets a strike!”

  His father, on the other hand, would always talk about the scientific causes. “It’s the ions inside the clouds, releasing built up charges,” he would say.

  “Why do they do that?” young Matthew would ask his father. “Are they angry?”

  “Ions are not alive,” his father would reply. “They don’t have feelings. They are simply electric charges.”

  “Do I have eye-ons inside of me?” the bright-eyed boy would ask.

  “Yes, you do, but that is different. You’re not a cloud….”

  After his father’s answer, Matthew would grow quiet again and stare back out into the storm. But it seems so alive! And though he sensed his father’s explanation might be what he would one day hear and be taught in high school, for a young boy with a normal active imagination, it was somehow easier to think of bowling than of eye-ons, whatever such things were. His father’s explanation took away something, but his mother’s added something to the fun, the excitement, and, most importantly, to the life of the storms. Later on in high school, when Matthew learned that eye-ons were really ions, and that all thinking itself was related to electrical activity inside the human brain, it was then that he gained an even greater appreciation for the electrical activity of thunderstorms. If thoughts were just electrical impulses, he reasoned, it meant that from the perspective of an outside observer looking in, the brain is much like a thunderstorm, and so…what might the hidden thoughts of thunderstorms be?

  One feature of the summer storms that came through Cottonwood was—despite all their impressive ferocity—they usually didn’t last long. After a short while, as quickly as it started, the storm Matthew was enjoying and listening to had passed over. A few minutes later, the sky outside his cell brightened to a soft evening glow. Matthew first sat up on his cot and then stood up. He looked down at the handcuffs and smiled. In one smooth motion, his right hand moved down and pulled at the chain joining the handcuffs together. Instantly, the restraints opened and fell from his wrists. He neatly straightened the blanket on the cot and fluffed the pillow. Picking up the handcuffs, he moved over to the table and pushed one of the chairs underneath, making certain a note he had written earlier was clearly and carefully placed in the center of the otherwise empty tabletop.

  He paused for a moment, then turned and headed directly toward the cell door and its multiple heavy locks. Without a sound or even the slightest hesitation, he walked directly into the hallway through the space the door occupied, as though the door were not present at all. He immediately turned to his left and headed down the hallway toward the main office area. At the end of the hallway, he could see a light coming through the windowed door. He walked immediately toward the door, and, as before, without hesitation or the slightest sound, he passed directly through the space of the door and was then standing in the main office area.

  Across the room, Matthew saw Sparky sitting at his desk. He was facing away, looking at his computer screen. Matthew walked over to the deputy and stood directly behind him. Sparky had no reaction at all but kept focused on the computer screen. Matthew glanced at what the deputy was browsing on the Internet. The pages he was viewing could easily be grounds to have him fired if he were somehow caught visiting them at work, but apparently Sparky was convinced he was alone in the office, as he sat completely relaxed with his right arm resting on the arm of his chair.

  After only a brief pause, Matthew reached down with the handcuffs he’d been carrying, and a split-second later, Sparky’s right arm was handcuffed to the arm of the chair. An instant after that, Matthew reached over Sparky’s shoulder and typed a few keystrokes on the keyboard.

  All this happened as quickly as a flash of lightning. Sparky had neither seen nor heard anything. He simply and suddenly found himself handcuffed to his chair, while the web page on his computer screen jumped to a completely different website than he’d been viewing only a moment before. Now on the center of the screen was a page printed in big, bold white letters on a plain, black background:

  ARE YOU A PRISONER OF PORNOGRAPHY?

  “What the hell?!” Sparky yelled while immediate
ly standing up and pulling at the handcuffs. He was spooked. He clumsily pulled the wheeled desk chair along the side of his desk while looking frantically around the room. He saw nothing.

  In the meantime, Matthew had moved to the front door of the office and looked back at Sparky.

  “What the hell is going on?!” Sparky screamed. “God damn it! What’s happening here?!”

  Matthew turned and rather than walking through the front door, he opened it in the normal fashion. He held it open and glanced over his shoulder at Sparky one last time. Sparky suddenly stopped his desperate and ridiculous gyrations of trying to free himself from the chair and looked blankly at the front door, which from his perspective had mysteriously just opened by itself.

  Matthew then walked out the door, letting it close and leaving Sparky to his private befuddlement. He walked down the stairs to the street. He could smell the sweetness of the air from the rainstorm that had just passed. Everything had been freshened and renewed—it was the delicious smell of life. Only life comes from life, and the thunderstorms always brought life with abundance.

  Main Street was mostly empty in the fading light, though there were a few people walking in various directions up and down the street. Matthew turned and headed north, but before he had taken more than a few steps, out of the corner of his eye he caught the motion of a silent electric car pulling up on the street to his left. He stopped and watched as Sheriff O’Neil got out of the driver’s seat, headed up the stairs, and went through the front doorway Matthew had just exited.