Actions speak louder than words but not nearly as often.- Mark Twain
What about writing? It's the action of writing which consists of words. Does writing speak louder than verbal communication? Because it exists permanently? Does this count as work?
Well, another day down, whatever.
What about writing? It's the action of writing which consists of words. Does writing speak louder than verbal communication? Because it exists permanently? Does this count as work?
Well, another day down, whatever.
“Why would anyone be out to get a poor sucker like me?” One of the purple gentleman facetiously lamented, the words oscillating through his bristly authority moustache. “You can’t think that way, Charles our boy. There is more to life then you ever dreamed possible.”
Charles thought about in dreams, how when he felt like he wanted something he could have it. He could make rows of guns appear, like in the matrix. The human mind could will things to appear out of thin air, he often as a boy would sit up in bed after a particularly thrilling dream and press his index fingers into his temples, pushing his frontal lobe into the front of his head to no effect.
“What are you doing with me? Turn that back on!” Charles had seen what they had meant for him not to see.
Arthur took this as his cue to exit, grabbing Charles’s hand and shaking it exhaustively and slipping through the door. He closed it swiftly with a click and was off.
Charles, in his head, simplified these two humanoid globs into “Red” and “Purple”. They presently turned toward each otherm deliberating nonvocally what to do next. Their office chairs spun and collided, and Charles was standing in the entranceway still on the other end of the room. They nodded at each other and turned back towards him.
“You seem utterly hopeless. You’re going to have to be a little more cooperative or we’re not going to get anywhere. Just save your random outbursts for after we have said our piece.”
Charles walked toward a window on the far end of the room and peered out. A suburban sprawl carried on a thousand feet below. It must have been some sort of simulated reality, a trick. He pinched himself, which met with little response and little pain. He stared at the cloudless azure sky, seagulls migrating in a giant V shape and gawking soundlessly. Somewhere life was teeming, even if it was just a dream world. Charles tried to will his feet to fly, and the first one came up easily, and then the second one, but not both together.
“Let me assure you that this is real.” Red stood and lunged across the grey monolithic desk to place a hand on Charles’s shoulder. “There is nothing to be afraid of. We have something we need to show you.”
“Yes, get on with it, get on with it.” Purple shook righteously as he stood up. He pointed a fat lumpy appendage up in the air and rose.
They lead Charles through a set of double doors on the opposite wall. Noticing Charles’s obsession with the window, Red said under his breath: “Nice trick, huh?”
In a flash the window was gone, the hallway was gone, the room disappeared. Charles was standing on a clear board elevated over an emptiness. If he looked down, he was afraid he’d call like a Road Runner cartoon.
“Behold,” Purples squeeky voice trembled with excitement. “Man’s search for meaning. The persistence of time.”
Charles watched himself step out of his car and look down at his parking spot, marked “Lattimore”. He watched Anne step off her bus, still that stupid goth kid. He saw himself, finally, as the bumbling fool he was. Nothing more than a big dumb animal.
He stared straight ahead at the action, he knew what happened next. He would leave his lunch on top of the car, stumble inside late, and be informed by Mr. Pulp that it was fine he didn’t know he was doing, but not in such certain terms. He entered the buildingm, but the camera did not follow him. It swung around underneath the bus, which had presently been vacated by Anne, rising into the center. Men in black suits sat packed on both sides, some standing and gripping onto poles with perfect balance, others thumbing through newspapers.
“You might not have noticed this yet, it’s ok, I don’t know who has.” The bus started to gain speed and the driver made no attempt to steer. He gawked straight forward, retrieving goggles from under his seat in a effortless motion. The tires began to climb off of the ground, when they struck the pavement sparks flew up on both sides of the cabin, the vice grip of hands tightening around the buses poles. Charles wondered if this was a circuit, if this bus made this ludicrous trip every day and returned.
“Hey, ease up on the gas!” An annoyed rider who was being crushed against the side of his seat yelled out at the driver. The man on the opposite side of his seat fell into him, apologizing profusely and attempting to untangle himself.
The bus started bouncing, five feet at first, then ten feet up, when it reached twenty it abruptly caught onto a hanging trolley wire. The driver stared back into the rearview mirror peavishly, straightened his cap and relaxed back into his seat. “You try making that landing,” He said. “Catching onto an invisible wire twenty feet up, you have to drive straight as an arrow, no way you can sacrifice speed, bub.”
The men holding the poles relaxed their hands, the rest resumed reading their newspapers. The bus converged with a cloud, a downy fog covering the windows on the outside.
“Anne’s an alien, then? I could have figured that out.” Charles said telepathically.
“It’s not… well… for simplicity sake, yes.” Purple said.
Charles’s mind made a sudden leap of its own, and now he was on this bus. “See what you think, see what’s here for you.” The overarching screen faded away, and Charles felt abandoned. If he screwed anything up they could probably whisk him back up, he thought. He took a seat at the back of the bus, for some reason no one was sitting there even though some had to stand.
“Whoa, partner, where’d you come from?” A skinny white haired man in a bowler cap and three piece suit asked, startled. “I’ve seen a lot of things, but someone appearing out of thin air, not that.”
Charles felt like spilling all of the beans, but didn’t want to be completely ostracized. The standers on the front of the bus looked back, eavesdropping and waiting for an answer. The men politely hiding behind their newspapers were listening as well.
“We’re going to need a boarding pass from you.” The bus driver called from the front of the bus. “No one rides for free.”
Charles checked his suit with the palms of his hands on the outside. He retrieved from the inner pocket a ticket. He stepped toward the front of the bus, waving it. The driver snatched it from his hand, studied it eagerly and grumbled in appeasement.
“It’s alright guys, he’s got a ticket, therefore he’s supposed to be on the bus.”
Charles went back to his seat and the white haired man leaned over again.
“So what do you do, young man? Me, I’m a career office stooge. Larry over there does accounting for himself, but mostly seems busy. Arnold makes sure the bus travels smoothly.”
“Everyone has a job here, huh?” Charles asked. He scratched his jaw and reached for an explanation of his job. He surveyed the working class surrounding him, looking for what they had that he lacked.
“Well, I think I run errands,” He thought outloud. “Or, I verify the necessity and existence of this world. I mean, I’ll do anything the boss asks me to do… Still, I can’t help but feel some faceless bastards are dragging me through the wilderness right now.”
The old man took a second to think this over. “You must work in the private sector. It’s imperative you don’t mix up your work with our work. World’s complicated enough as it is. Different world for an older man like me.”
Charles nodded in approval and watched as the bus made a gentle curving turn out a cloud. A momentary bright blue shot through the windows, and then they reemerged into a cloud. It felt like he was riding in a little bus on a childs mobile. The child itself would rise out of that crib soon enough, and become just like Charles.
Charles examined the ticket in his hands. It was a cheaply made piece of paper, stained yellow by a printer ink. His name was in the top corner, so this must not have been real either. The bus number, 33A, was emboldened on the top, along with the fine print “NOT EXCHANGEABLE, Issued subject to company’s regulations.” The destination was marked illegibly in smeared sharpy, it looked like it said “Startown.”
The old man settled his head back against the window, his hands steepled together in front of him, elbows pointing outward. He stared over at Charles, unreadable behind his pursed lips and furrowed brow.
“Did you know that girl who just got off?” Charles broke the silence, trying to resist fidgeting.
“Anne.” The old man said. “Yes, we all know Anne. She was once one of our brightest young stars. The tides of time have taken her away from us. She used to be so nice, so friendly, the stars in her eyes all but have disappeared.”
“Well, do you know what she does?”
“What did I tell you?” The old man scoffed. “We don’t worry about that. She got called down to work in the mundane world, the big fancy pants science factory, that’s good enough for us. How do you know her, anyway?”
The petulant old man shoved his hands into his coat pockets. He gathered his wits and began jammering again.
“She isn’t so bad, as I told you though. As long as we’re on the subject. She just latches on to anyway who shows her the slightest bit of attention, seems to be looking for anything better. Her home life must be awful. I don’t get what the all black is about. I reckon what she needs is a good man.
Charles blushed and smiled.
“Would you two shut up?” The man who got fallen on said. “It’s a long enough trip without the extra goddamn headache.”
No comments:
Post a Comment