The Starry Sphinx

by V X Lloyd

  “Get a load of the world’s biggest sandbox,” his father had called it. Moony and Alex buried him up to his face while Joanna watched, peeling her daily grapefruit and casting the peels in front of him. Yvette pretended they had beheaded an evil emperor and danced around him, barefoot in the hot sand.

  Celia, in French, asked the bicyclist if she was all right.

  "I've seen better days," she responded in English. "I've also seen worse ones."

  The trucker groaned, trying to free himself from the cab, which rested on its side. "So, America, what do I owe you for this delight?" Moony couldn't make out the man's words due to his heavy accent. He thought he heard a man yelling angrily.

  Moony tilted his head back to let the rain wash off the rest of the wheat. Scrubbing most of it out of his hair and off his shoulders, he checked on the biker on his hood. She stretched her legs -- everything seemed to be working fine. Not so for her bike. She briefly and self-consciously checked her backpack, which brimmed with plastic-wrapped packages of white powder.

  The trucker checked the traffic. A short train of comically small cars whizzed by. Another bicyclist carrying a backpack sped around the corner. It slid into the mound of wheat, then slowed to a muddy halt. When the traffic was clear, the trucker approached Moony.

  "You mind giving me a ride to someplace dry where we can get this matter straightened out?"

  Moony looked to Celia. She was looking at him.

  Their rock-solid plan had entirely failed to account for them showing up late. Moony checked his watch. They had twenty minutes.

  *

  Celia watched an ant carry a peanut shell across the bar’s red clay floor. Moony filled out some paperwork that would wire the trucker twice the amount he said he would need. The biker shot an angry glare at the trucker, and the trucker didn't hand over anything to anybody. Apparently what he had meant by "sorting things out" had been to get some money from Moony, and that was all.

  “It was raining very hard. You must understand I couldn’t see you,” said the trucker, apologizing as he left.

  They were all still soaking wet, and so much wheat stuck to him that Moony wondered if it might sprout before long.

  He reached one hand into his jacket pocket and traced his fingers over the glass bottle of the checkered potion. Leaning back in his chair, he peeked at it to make sure it was still sealed and intact and in good order. It looked to be just fine. When his finger brushed the crystal cork, he felt a wave of ecstasy. His eyes glazed over and he wondered what Perry and Deb were experiencing right at that moment. They might have been arriving at the Spirit World about then.

  They would need to hurry.

  Celia gave the woman the remainder of her cocaine, and the woman wasn't taken aback by the donation. A simple gracias was her reply. She received the sack of white powder as nonchalantly as if it had been a package of tortillas.

  The two talked for a few minutes until it seemed that all was level and square between them.

  "El Mundu del Espiritu?" She shook her head. Either she didn't know what they were talking about or she believed the place didn't exist.

  She shot them a look that said "You two are stupid and reckless and I am not interested."

  Moony wondered how the trip would have been different if he had taken Zelda.

  *

  "Take your hat off." Moony stepped awkwardly over what looked like was hole in the floor. He saw darkness at the bottom. It was a mirror – what he had seen in it was an enormous burnt-out bulb on the ceiling 30 feet above him.

  The Spirit World was a theatre made from what seemed to be an ancient coliseum, the walls of which were carved from a warm-toned stone common to the area. The domed ceiling high overhead was painted black. A bedroom and living area filled the stage. It was decorated like a ballroom on the Titanic, a glittering and exhausted 1920's-style. Yellowing white drapes remained undusty and continued to impress reflections of tarnished gold woven flowers. The stage's wooden floor, painted black, was replete with trapdoors and chalk outlines of set design memories from easily a few decades ago.

  The Gypsy did not allow hats inside her theatre. That Moony had made it all the way from the backdoor entrance to center stage still wearing his Denver Broncos cap was a tragedy of possibility for The Gypsy, who attempted tremendous control over her surroundings, both psychical and physical.

  Slow patters of water made their way to the floor from his soaked clothes. She didn't seem bothered in the least by the obviousness of his soaked-to-the-bone-ness, to say nothing about how he was still heavily salted with wheat.

  At the stage's far end he was pleased to see Perry and Deb, both of them standing there awkwardly sipping brightly colored cocktails.

  That meant that the first part of plan A was doable: the Gypsy was alcohol-friendly. She would be willing to take her drink of cognac. His hand in his jacket pocket, Moony held the potion tightly in his grip. It sent him a blast of euphoric waves. It was his strong preference that plan A would work.

  To keep his presence in a normal state of Moony vagueness, he reminisced over the trip to Spain. The sun, the house, Celia. His mind returned to the car crash, the wheat spilling everywhere. He reproached his imagination that it was so readily drawn toward unpleasant memories.

  From appearances, the Gypsy looked busy with preparations: arranging several ceremonial objects on a table at the stage's middle. Some carved from wood, some silver, and some objects looked to be gold. There was an assortment of cups, candles, vases, daggers and many other objects Moony couldn't make out from his distance. As she worked, she smoked a hand-rolled cigarette so long and thin it sagged under its own weight.

  A knock on the steel back door echoed brightly, and he looked up. The Gypsy glared at him, but made no move.

  The knock recurred. "Get the door," she called to him.

  He walked offstage past a velvet black curtain. Pushing the cold handle, streetlight and the sound of heavy rain flooded in. A fur-coated woman extended her hand. He looked at the hand— delicately gloved, he noticed—and shook it lightly.

  She reached in to kiss him on the lips. They savored a familiar connection. She opened the door the rest of the way and walked in.

  "My coat." Kitty handed it to him and took off her gloves. "I'm pleased to see you again. You’re surprised I’m here."

  Her suspicion was sort of true.

  Kitty handed him a nickel-plated 9mm. "It's loaded." He took it – why did he take it? – and stuck it in his front pocket. Why must he always be handed dangerous objects?

  She beamed him a thoughtstream. The truth of this world lies deeper than appearances. It is in the experience of things that the truth can be found. The experience of any truth is different from the statement of it.

  Why do you insist on speaking in ways that are hard to understand? He responded.

  Walking past him on her way to greet her sister, she winked. "The human mind is so boring."

  *

  The fate of the universe rested on his shoulders, Heath knew. As part of Plan A, he had taken a sizable dose of thoroughly shielded and de-networked nano-3 so that his thoughts would not be known to the Gypsy or anyone else. It would provide him with the needed cerebral noise to cloak his true feelings and intentions. It was also really trippy, and he found it hard to focus. The entirety of his sense perception blurred into a synesthetic mishmash as much akin to complex mathematics as much as tactile sensations. Each sound carried with it some additional metadata about the person speaking it. Each visual was a feast of analytic optics, all of the textures of his surroundings something he could fine-tune and tweak upon input. Every movement of his body was as pin-pricked and tingly as if his limbs had fallen asleep.

  The water-like rustle of a thousand seated moviegoers filled The Gypsy's home. She stood center stage making conversation with Moony about something so obvious and straightforward Heath couldn't bear to have interest in. He needed something complex and intricate to fill his mind's immense, if
sporadic, processing power. He sat in the front row, petting his sleeping puppy, his own ears semi-telepathically roving through the sea of audience chatter like those of a nervous animal searching for its owner:

  "I'm not sure that I am the sort of fellow who attends events such as this," said a worried man.

  "You are, and we’re all the same. We have our trick. As with Botticelli and how he mastered a certain sort of face," responded a high-minded old woman who will die in eight months.

  "The set is always the same for her performances,” responded a bland man who will live to age 99.

  "When does the fight start?" asked a nun-type woman who will live to age 77.

  "I don’t know, but these chairs are to die for,” said an angelic, heavy-set man who will die two years after retirement.

  "Did they drug him? He is so complacent," said a sharp, witty woman who will also die two years after retirement.

  Whether these people were actually communicating, which is to say, communicating out loud, vocally, from one person to another, or whether Heath was merely picking up on one among a myriad of possibilities as to what was really happening, he couldn't be sure. He also wasn't positive that anything--- anything--- as in, anything at all in the entire creation --- really mattered. It wasn't so much that the things which eventually happened seemed to be inevitable. It was rather that the observer himself was miniscule in the face of his own consideration. In this sea of data, losing oneself was easy. Distantly, he remembered that he had a mission, and that his mission carried the fate of the universe. There was something interesting about that, he had to admit.

  The Gypsy was applying makeup on Moony's face. There was no curtain - they were getting dressed for a performance center stage while the audience watched and conceptualized their response to what some suspected were arbitrary acts. These people believed that life was meaningless in a bad way, and they enjoyed seeing it staged.

  Every theatre performance always had something to do with the audience’s internal response, Heath felt. The world was fictionalized upon viewing. He could smell it. It smelled like a Halloween mask to him.

  The Gypsy raised her velvet-gloved hands and the crowd grew quiet. Red silk of her kimono rustled down her arms. Downstage was a four-poster bed with black sheets. A wet bar and anodized hat rack stood to the right, an antique dinner table to the left. Symmetrical leather couches – one stained, one not – rested upstage on the far left and right, facing center stage where The Gypsy stood in front of Moony, who wore a grey business suit. Heath wished he would have purchased some caramel corn.

  The stage lights were not so bright – Moony looked out at the audience and could see them look away. Kitty danced to no music at all while The Gypsy shouted lines: Hosiery houses. Screen door entrance, vulnerable windows. Houses are amphitheatres of thought. Horses are tight ambulances, trot the siren in a shoe. . .

  Torches were brought on stage and arrayed along the perimeter. Invisible light makes telephones ring, makes the merry world go round. Moony, in the center of the circle of flames, was not enjoying himself. Heath could feel how Moony considered firing the gun just to clear everyone away.

  The caped magician Moony had first met coming out of the bathroom in apartment A112 walked on stage in black velvet and clapped for the audience. His hands made dull thuds.

  He lauded The Gypsy with flamboyant praise. She continued spouting phrases. How you confront the demon makes that demon what it is. To the extent that no one else changes in the world, you are alone in a dream. He threw a stack of cards at Moony – they turned into moths and scattered near the flame. In the cold theatre, the moths would not fly away.

  Julio put a velvet dust mask on, there was a puff of smoke, and when the smoke cleared, he was gone.

  Moony coughed at the smoke. His vision, normally a resounding 20/20, was blurry. She who dies with the most secrets wins. Pins of stars prick light from the sky.

  *

  Moony could feel it. Now was the time.

  Or anyway, he'd had his fill of the theatrics, and he could feel Perry and Deb absolutely ready to do whatever needed to be done.

  What was it going to be?

  Plan A.

  "I have something for you," Moony said, flexing his superhuman density.

  The Gypsy tilted her head, interested, maybe charmed.

  "Would you care for a drink of this really old cognac?" He looked out at the audience as if imagining himself an actor in a silent film. Actually, he was imagining the text of his dialogue blipping over the heads of the theatregoers. He turned back to the Gypsy. "I don't know why, but I was feeling like making a toast."

  At once, Deb arrived bearing cups, and he poured the cognac into each glass.

  The brew was a beautiful golden color. He could already feel its warmth. It smelled like time had softened the harshness of its alcoholic strength, had given it complexity.

  Raising their glasses, Moony addressed them and the audience, "To the Spirit World. May we all be ready for it when it finds us."

  The Gypsy herself looked out at the audience. "We're all ready already, aren't we?"

  A general bored murmur of agreement came from the herd of weirdos seated in the audience.

  From among them, Heath stood.

  Moony let out an audible sigh, relieved beyond all hope that Heath had remembered his role.

  The Gypsy stared at Heath, an uncertain look on her face.

  "You know what helps me," Celia announced from the stage's far end, "is yoga." She brought herself into a very competent sphinx pose.

  They were all doing a really great job of being heavy-handed actors, very self-conscious about being on stage. For those in the audience, it was better for them to think of that aspect of the performance as if it was intentional. Otherwise, it was painful to watch. But, then again, that you have made it this far in the book means that you know just what I mean.

  The Gypsy looked too preoccupied with Heath to pay Celia any mind. She took a half-step towards him, raising her finger as if about to ask a question she didn't quite know how to phrase yet.

  Moony awkwardly dinked glasses with Deb and then the Gypsy.

  The Gypsy pointed her gaze at Deb and then at Moony. “How is it, I wonder, that you believe your thoughts elude me? How could you possibly be unclear about how things will go tonight?”

  “Let me count the ways,” Moony admitted. In the earnestness of his not-knowing, he sensed it: true spontaneity carried with it something that the Gypsy could not crack. However nano-3 worked, it must in some way depend on habitual patterns of thinking, prescribed actions, of consulting the manual before taking action, even if the manual was in your mind and consulting it only took a split second. He was acting without the mind, but he wasn't flying blind.

  The Gypsy took the role of elementary school teacher. "It will go better if you prove your commitment to the cause by publicly assassinating your mentor. Doing so will prove the final piece in an eons-long puzzle of cosmic proportions. Chess among the higher forces, with you as a very important pawn. It's always been known that at this performance, only one of the two sisters will survive, and that the one who perishes shall be killed by her valued pupil. That's you, Moony. Who is your mentor? My dear Kitty? You value her above yourself, and that’s sweet. I wonder how this will play out?"

  Theatre, Moony thought, was stupid.

  That's when Perry reached into the front of his pants and pulled it out:

  An 8x10 portrait of Mister Rogers.

  His face determined, his arms steady, he extended the portrait for the Gypsy to see.

  And she did. She looked. You yourself couldn't resist. And once spotting the face of Fred Rogers, who could help but spend a few seconds pondering his human warmth?

  For a solid two seconds, the face of Creatia Ernald displayed unmistakable vulnerability.

  Time seemed to slow.

  Moony held his breath.

  Nothing that was readily apparent was yet happening, but everyo
ne felt certain that something was imminent. The moment was pregnant with the drama of possibility.

  Moony raised his eyes overhead. Expecting --- what he dared not let himself think of, lest the Gypsy read his mind.

  Nothing happened.

  Nervously, Deb took a sip of cognac.

  "Dang, that is really good."

  Still nothing happened. Nothing was what kept happening, and everyone knew it.

  "You know what else is really good," came Celia's voice, "Check out this headstand!"

  Eyes fixed on Heath, the Gypsy shot back the entirety of her cognac, then let the glass fall from her hands to shatter on the stage floor. She reached into a fold of her kimono and pulled out a 9mm identical to the one that Kitty had handed Moony.

  "Plan B, motherfuckers!" yelled Heath. Standing, he handed his puppy to the woman seated next to him, and pulled from his jacket pocket a long ceremonial dagger.

  Gasps from many in the audience. Not because anyone had disappeared, not because of Heath's knife or the Gypsy's gun, but because Celia's shirt had slipped over her head, revealing her glorious upside-down breasts.

  Pipe organ music began playing -- there was an organ in here? Scanning around, Moony saw it on the other side of the audience. Kitty was seated there, playing with mad abandon. She was as good as the cognac.

  "You are mine," The Gypsy said to Heath. “And will always be mine. That’s why I don’t want to kill you.”

  She cocked the gun but turned away from Heath and instead pointed it at Deb.

  Deb let out a wail.

  From behind the Gypsy, Moony saw Perry close in, but he wasn't fast enough.

  Moony saw the inevitability of it. He dove in front of Deb. He, alien human, had become the unpalatable impossibility: a human shield.

  Flashback to high school football. Catching an insanely long pass.