by Robert Brown
The screen was black now, I supposed the machine turned off, so I stood up to walk out. This whole exchange had left me angry and depressed. I walked to the door, and stood there a second asking myself if I was going to regret walking away from all these memories. Then I heard a “ shunk-chiing!”
Instantly a shiver raced down my spine. I turned and saw a new note had appeared on the screen! I walked quickly back and sat down again. The note read:
Dear Mr. Brown,
That can’t be what life is like! It doesn’t make any sense! You’re lying! You suck!
Why would you work a job you hated, so that you could only barely afford to live a life you hate?! Adventures are free! Indiana Jones never even had a wallet that I saw!
I would NEVER live the life you’re describing! There is no way I would let that happen to me after so much bad has already happened.
You lie and I hate you.
- Robbie
My eyes widened, and my mind raced, Wait a second, I think I might remember this! Didn’t I get a couple of messages from this machine when I was a kid? I told dad, and he took me to talk with a guy at his work, who asked me a lot of questions about my parents’ impending divorce, and if my father hit me? Dad told me not to talk about Samuel.
The screen glowed green, waiting for a response, but this time it scared me. I didn’t believe this was happening, yet at the same time I was red-faced angry and sad. I hated myself, and I wondered if all those deeply scarring emotions had led me to invent that this had all happened.
The screen glowed green, waiting for a reply.
I sat quietly for more than an hour, replaying memories from my childhood, wondering when my life had gotten on this horrible track, and how much longer I was going to stay on it. I didn’t believe my dreams were remotely possible any more. I couldn’t remember anything I still enjoyed, or if I had any dreams left.
I had nothing positive to tell this little boy, but I was not going to hurt him again. I would not respond until I had better news, and that meant I had to make better news happen.
This reminded me of my band, the only dream left. The band was just forced to turn down a great concert eight hundred miles away because we couldn’t afford to get there, and we couldn’t take the time off work required for the drive. I was tired of making excuses and hiding from life. I reached into my pocket, and pulled out my phone.
“Look, it’s not just about the day job thing. Hold on, I’m gonna three-way call Kristina and Traci, they need to be in on this,” Krzysztof said. He was our bass player, and a damned good one, but his investment in the band was not huge. He and his wife Traci had their own band prior to this one. They only set it aside to join my band, so “someone else could handle the bullshit”. It might seem glamourous, but running a band is not easy.
“Hello?” Kristina answered. Kristina was my wife. Well, recently my wife, although she had been my keyboard player and friend since she was a teenager.
“Hey, Kristina, this is Krzysztof, and I’ve got Robert on the line. We are talking about the show in Salt Lake City.”
“I thought we had decided we couldn’t play it?” Kristina replied.
“Well, Robert thinks we should…” Krzysztof started to say before I interrupted.
“Hey, It’s me,” I said “I’m sorry, but I had a change of heart. I think we have to stop saying no to everything that isn’t completely comfortable. We are saying no to nineteen out of twenty shows. All we end up playing is the same bar in Seattle over and over again,” I said. “We can’t make new fans by playing to the same fans over and over.” What I wasn’t saying was We can’t give up our tiny lives for something better if we aren’t willing to work harder at it. You have to do more to get more! I know everybody else had stopped trying for something more, years ago, seduced by the comfortable placation of a nine to five job. However, my recent letter from myself had reinvigorated my discontent.
“We just played Chicago,” said Traci, who had joined the call.
“That was a year and a half ago!” I snapped back, trying not to sound desperate and regretting the speed at which I retorted.
“Sixteen months. Don’t exaggerate,” Krzysztof said, defending Traci. “You always exaggerate everything,” Things were starting to heat up a little.
“I wasn’t exaggerating, I was rounding up. At this rate we are talking about one show every two years! How are we supposed to get anywhere with only one show every two years!?!”
I think they could hear the desperation in my voice, and Kristina came in with a sympathetic tone. “Aw, honey, you are somewhere now! We don’t need to be big rock stars to be proud of ourselves.” She was trying to make me feel better, but this wasn’t working with me. In fact it was making things worse. Compromising my self-definition felt like the last step before I submitted to having a mediocre life. “Besides, we are going to lose money on the show! The plane tickets will cost more then they are offering to pay us. We can’t afford to play the show!” This band was getting too spoiled with their daily incomes to do the ‘play for free’ gigs anymore.
Then I had an idea, “If I can get us to the show for free, will you do it?”
“How?” Everyone asked at almost the same time.
“Leave that to me, I know a guy that can help.”
We hung up, and I turned back to the Chronofax, ready to type. Then I stopped, and I thought, No, I’ll respond when I have something better to report.
AN ILL-FATED VESSEL
Some years after we last saw him, the old man in the herringbone coat sat on the bucking bench seat of a 1903 Knox: a turn-of-the-century flatbed truck normally used for delivering produce. Along side him sat the driver in a page-boy cap and goggles. The driver’s scarf kept brushing the old man’s face. This happened with almost enough frequency to change his mood from one of excitement, to one of annoyance.
The Knox was first in a line of trucks. There were eight trucks in all, and their flat open beds were piled high with wooden crates. Jutting from the tops of these were copper pipes and massive, straw-packed glass orbs. The trucks wound their way around the streets of London toward the shipyards.
They arrived at a newly constructed wall and gate, large enough to completely hide the dock from the view of anyone walking on the street. Standing by the gate were four sailors of unequal size, poorly shaven, tanned to the color of old leather, and uncomfortable in their ill-fitting uniforms.
Noticing the man in the herringbone coat, the largest of them spoke, “Piss off, you! You’ve got the wrong address. You can’t bring your groceries down here!”
“I am Doctor Calgori. I believe your captain is waiting for me,” said the old man standing up in his seat,
“Oi, we do knows you! We knows him!” said the smallest of the sailors while elbowing the largest. “Lemme fetch the captain, and we’ll see what he wants us to do with yoose.” With that he slipped through the gate.
The largest of the sailors then stepped around toward the side of the first truck and tipped one of the crates precariously over so he could see inside it. “Is this where you’ve got your magical contraptions, Doctor? ‘ow’s about giving us a little magic whiles we waits?”
Doctor Calgori scrambled clumsily out of the truck, “Careful with that, my good man! It is not magic. Those orbs are both delicate and expensive! I have no idea where we could acquire another on such short notice! I had them especially made to my exact specifications, and lacking even one would unbalance the…”
At this point an orb rolled out of the box and popped like a giant light bulb at the feet of the sailor. As it burst, the pink gas that was inside it formed a small cloud just two feet off the ground, surrounding the sailor’s waist. The cloud began to rain, a tiny bolt of lightning cracked like a whip, and struck the sailor in the knee. In his fright, he leapt backward into the chest of his enraged captain, who had walked quietly up during the commotion, and watched the whole scene unfold without uttering a word.
“Buff
oon!” the captain exclaimed with a look of disgust on his face. He swung his cane and struck the sailor in his left eye. The brass t-shaped cane handle sunk deeply into the sailor’s eye socket. The captain then removed it with both difficulty and disgust.
“You cretin!” he continued to roar even as the stricken sailor fell to his knees in pain, grasping his face. “I don’t know whether to call you a liability, or a Punchinello! This equipment is worth more than your life!” He raised his cane again to strike.
“Good sir!” cried Doctor Calgori. “That is more than excessive!”
The captain lowered his cane, and glared angrily back at Calgori. He glared for just a second, but then his demeanor flickered to one of cordial politeness. “Ah, Doctor Calgori! I was told you had arrived! I’m Captain Brussel. I hope you didn’t find your journey too taxing?”
“Not at all,” Calgori answered, not masking his distaste. With a concerned look, he walked over to check on the sailor on the ground.
“Pay no mind to this mongrel, he’s made of stern stuff. I’m sure he’s learnt his lesson, and will be back at his post in no time. Isn’t that right, mongrel?” Though he was shaking, the sailor on the ground did not utter a reply. The captain continued, “Now, let me show you what we have prepared for you.”
“I will admit I am curious as to why we are at the docks.” Doctor Calgori said shakily, as the Captain led him away from the wounded sailor. This cruel violence wasn’t the first the Doctor had seen in his life, but it was jarring nonetheless.
Through the gates was a bee hive of commotion as dozens of men labored around a massive sailing ship. The ship’s design was easily a hundred years out of date. It was vintage, even for the early 1900s. Yet its construction was new, even unfinished in places. The ship looked like a gorgeous and ornate vessel from the height of the Age of Sail: intricately carved wood, cannon, ropes, masts, sails, and figurehead. It was majestic and beautiful, and completely new. It was a strong contrast to the beaten and scarred sailors that were busy loading or rigging her. They filled the air with the smell of their sweat, and startling profanity.
“Why have you brought me to this…pirate’s ship?” the Doctor asked in distaste for sailors and vessel. Calgori had been through a lot, and at this age his memory was very selective, as you will see.
“This is the vessel you are to fit with your…contraptions” the captain said. Calgori’s eyes narrowed as he squinted at the boat, but the captain continued, “I realize she looks old fashioned, but I assure you she’s very new, and beautifully built. A great deal of consideration was put into her construction, and her old fashion looks were very much part of the grand plan.
“Though she looks heavy and old fashioned, she is as light and modern as 1906 can produce. This is the H.M.S. Ophelia. It’s a Shakespearean reference, you see, and a bloody good joke as Ophelia floated herself, didn’t she?” The captain ended with a perverse chuckle.
The Doctor glared at the grinning captain “Hamlet’s Ophelia died in the water, as will you and your crew! Do you have any idea what that hull will go through when we attempt to travel, if it’s submerged in water?!”
“I’m sure you have your work cut out for you, and I would hope you are capable of making the necessary modifications?” This question was almost a dare, and Calgori wondered if he saw a threat behind the captain’s bushy eyebrows.
“Quite,” said Calgori, and he paused while he made some calculations in his head. “However, your men up on those masts are wasting their time. Bring them down, and fetch me some porters. This will completely change the schedule I originally proposed. We will need to unpack and, I think , we will need to order canvas.”
“We have two complete sets of sails, Doctor.”’
“It is not for the sails. I shall make you a list of new supplies. Your superiors really should have spoken to me before they commissioned the ship’s construction. They completely misunderstood my quite specific directions. I am sure it fits your plans, but it is completely unsuitable for mine. Unless you are planning to die on your first trip, we have a lot of modifications to make, not the least being that we need to get this boat out of the water!”
As the Doctor was escorted aboard, the sailors from the gate shouldered their wounded friend up the gang plank, and tried to hush his mumbled threats. “None of that talk now, mongrel. You’ve got no option but to serve your captain or go back to prison.”
“We’ll see,” said the sailor. “We’ll bloody well see.”
SKEPTICISM
“Do you know how many bands have died in small plane crashes?” Kristina asked from the back seat of our green Ford Windstar minivan. The paint was peeling on the hood, and it was hot and sticky inside with the sweat of the five young musicians. We had less than one day to travel from Gig Harbor, Washington, to a music festival we were to play in Salt Lake City, Utah.
“Just because it’s happened before, doesn’t mean it’ll happen to us. We’ll be fine,” I answered. Many times during my life I felt like I was forcing the musicians of my band against their will into doing something that would make their lives bearable. They all complained about their jobs, yet every step of progress the band made, no matter how small, seemed a step uphill. It was as if I couldn’t get them to see there was something outside their little lives, and so they constantly pulled against me.
“Sure beats the hell out of driving the whole way to the concert in this damned minivan. This thing smells like old sandwiches,” grumbled our bass player, only half-jokingly. He was a small guy, dyed black hair, unshaven, with a little tuft of facial hair under his bottom lip. His style of humor was to complain in a funny voice so it sounded like he was impersonating a grouchy old man, all while really voicing a complaint. It was effective, since you couldn’t argue with a “joke”, but it was really just his way of bitching about everything. “If we drive now, by the time we’d get to our gig in Salt Lake City, we’ll all smell like old sandwiches!”
“Patsy Cline. They had to ID her body from a piece of her the size of a loaf of bread. That was all that was left of her.” Kristina was sort of our – not voice of reason – but voice of perpetual doubt, despite all reason. Or at least that is how she was in those days. She was a tall blond, and was usually seen with pigtails. She was also the type of pianist that would stay up late reading biographies of long-dead composers through the reading glasses she did not want anyone to know she wore.
“We’ll be fine. Statistically speaking there is a greater chance of dying in the shower than dying in a plane crash,” I said from behind the wheel. Thank God we were not going to drive all the way to Salt Lake City. If people were going to bitch the whole time, I think I would have cracked before we got there.
“John Denver.”
“Look, if we were gonna drive we would have had to have left five hours ago. We have to fly now!” I retorted. I’m the lead singer of this band, I write the songs, (mostly about how much life sucks, or about my parents’ divorce) as well as make the website, newsletters, etc. In those days, we were the kind of band that stood onstage wearing all black, trying hard not to smile, even though we were really excited that all of seventy-five people turned out for the show.
“Buddy Holly.”
Our odorific van pulled off the back road, onto the gravel of a local airfield. A few weeks ago at an after-party one of our fans bragged about his pilot’s license. He offered to fly us to a show if we bought gas for his plane. At the time the idea seemed exciting and glamorous, but as the dust settled in the parking lot of what had to be the smallest airport in the country, and we saw the tiny rusted plane ahead of us, I was starting to think that Kristina might be right. On the other hand, this was starting to look like an adventure.
IMPACT
Within a couple of hours we were bucking around through deep purple clouds somewhere over Idaho. Rain was pelting the plane’s windshield so hard that we had to shout at one another to be heard. After a while it was not worth the effort. The only one
who still had anything to say was Kristina.
“Lynyrd Skynyrd!”
Suddenly, there was a clearing in the clouds. In front of us was something unexplainable: a huge black silhouette the shape of a massive football, so large it filled the front windows.
The massive shape was wider than it was tall, and we were not entirely sure how far off the ground we were, so the pilot tried to climb in the vain hope of going over it. He jerked back on the control yoke, assuming the plane would leap up as well. But the plane was small, the weather was fierce, and the plane had no noticeable response other than violent shaking. The passengers in the plane now screamed in fear, and the pilot looked frantic.
The dark silhouette was too big, our plane was too poorly powered, and the pilot was outwitted by a lack of response from his controls. Soon the shadow filled our view, and the last thing I remember was the dashboard of our plane crushing the pilot and his chair into my legs.
When I woke I was disoriented, cold, wet, there was blood on my face and a crushing pain in my legs because they were pinned by the pilot’s seat in front of me. From my viewpoint our plane was precariously squished to the side of a cliff. The tail of the plane was missing, it had broken off just behind Kristina and my seat, and rest of the band was nowhere to be seen. In times like these people tend to shut down parts of their brain so they can deal with the task at hand. I did this now, ignoring my missing bandmates and burying all the emotional trauma to deal with later.
I looked through the broken windshield. Impossibly, the cliff seemed to be made of canvas! There was no going out through the windshield. That way was blocked by the wet fabric “cliff”. The right window of the cockpit was shattered but still intact, and the combination of the pelting rain and the spider web of cracks in the glass made it impossible to see through. Our only escape route was through the missing left side window.