Seen Seams

Our eyes don’t narrow.

They can’t. Our eyebrows can lower, lower eyelids can tense, pulling themselves up, but our eyes can’t narrow. Still, in a world where what really is falls secondary to what things seem to be, I can hardly be blamed for noting to myself that Sam’s eyes seemed to have narrowed as I told him that he “wasn’t it.”

“What do you mean I’m not it?”

“That is, in fact, what I said, so I assume it is what I meant.” His incredulous stare didn’t seem to be the lead-in for any statements, so I continued. “Although if you want me to specify, I guess you are it.” His expression melted for an instant, eyebrows lifting. “One of many its, in fact.” The eyebrows crashed down again. “So little separates you from most of the other three dozen people in this room that it’s negligible.” I’m sure he had something to say but, at this point, social courtesy wasn’t high on my list of priorities.

***

My knuckles were still white from clutching the steering wheel through the drive home as I fumbled with the keys to my apartment. Michael could hardly have been less subtle about my removal from the program. Slamming my door shut as soon as I cleared its arc, my dropped keys clattered past their usual resting place on the morning’s mail down off of the stool I used as a table onto the floor. Shoes still on, I made my way to my bathroom for a possibly thirst quenching bath.

As it filled the tiny bathroom faster than the scalding water filled the tub, I watched the steam drift calmly around my bright-red right hand, so engorged from its brief and distracting dip into the faucet’s stream. I sat in the only comfortable spot; on the toilet, with the cover down, staring at my outstretched palm, focusing on the sting of the burn as it masked my anger over being kicked out. Why was I kicked out? Michael did it in the evening, when nobody else was around as I’d been held late, told me to leave, asked for my gun back and...

I focused, again, on my hand; this time noticing the first evidence of the steam’s condescension in my palm, a single drop of water in its very center. I absentmindedly flexed my palm, undulating my fingers as I replayed the conversation with Michael.

I found my hand in a fist.

***

Trunk of the car filled with groceries, I pulled into my driveway. Inexplicably, Sam was standing over the row of garbage pails, still puzzling over them as I got out. He held a small black bag, the sort liquor stores use, in one hand, mostly obscured by his body. “Sam?” I called.

“Hey, could you tell me which of these is non-recycling?”

“What are you doing here?” I slammed my door shut, using far more force than was necessary.

“See that woman over there? The one gardening?” He pointed at my next door neighbor, emphasizing the last word so as to grab her attention. “Well, I was going to ask her, but then I thought it’d be inappropriate to see if she knows where to throw this bag of condoms. So, could you tell me?” Gears shifted in my head as I already made the connection.

“You dirty little…” My arm sliced through where Sam’s head had been a moment ago. He had the advantage the first time; he’d seen me charge at him. My second swing missed his head again, this time diverted by a nudge of his palm. The momentum carried me forward, leaving my side exposed. But Sam didn’t hit me, he just backed away. I was too angry to bother with a fist fight, pulling my gun from within my suit jacket.

“I’d think twice about that. Little Miss Rake over there is watching.” She wasn’t little, was unmistakably past the age to be a miss and wasn’t holding a rake, but she certainly was watching. “Why don’t we go inside?”

***

“Sit there, Sam.” I sat where he pointed, seeing little issue with where he and I wound up, on opposite ends of their dinner table, with his wife in middle, just off to the side, forming a nice little romantic triangle. “How long has this been going on?”

“What unit of measurement do you want?”

“Time. What else?”

“Oh. I was hoping you’d pick abortions, maybe hundred pack condom boxes, there are other metrics, if you’d like.” I didn’t want him to respond to that. “But if you insist, which you will…”

“Which I do.” He almost growled.

“Since we met. Remember that initiation party, when my group was first accepted into the program? That nice little black tie event? Your wife was wearing that nice little black dress? You really shouldn’t have run off on business mid-way through. That was a bad call on your part.”

Realizing that he was at least partially to blame, his voice took a turn for the soft. “Margaret?” Her gaze remained fixed, anchored to the fold in the table cloth in front of her. “Margaret!” came the follow-up, eschewing all softness. Margaret’s head fell further, landing in her opened palms, propped upright on her elbows.

“You never wondered? She must’ve changed her behavior at least a bit. That’s your job, Michael, to figure out what people are doing, what they’re thinking.” I didn’t care if her behavior had actually changed or not. All I needed was for him to doubt her, and, as a result, himself. “And you couldn’t even catch a two year long affair, between one of your students and your wife.”

Margaret managed to squeak through her sobs. “Michael, I, I.”

“Please, Margaret.” I would’ve preferred she not talk. “Michael here needs to process. Why don’t we be quiet for a moment?” Personally, I didn’t have the slightest intention to remain silent.

“I’m sorry, I…”

“Margaret?” A hint of edge in my voice has such an effect on a distraught woman. The resulting silence was, if not comforting, at least relieving.

***

I sat silently, hunched over and fondling the barrel of my gun under the table. The neighbor had seen me pull it out; that was a mistake. She might’ve even called the cops. Either way, I couldn’t risk even threatening with it. Sam had taken control of the situation. In my own home. With my own wife. That was just unnecessarily insulting.

“Processed it all yet?” Sam taunted. He sat across from me, leaning back in his chair, his eyes leaving mine only to dart to my wife, who, sitting to my right, was now rendered silent. He was almost comfortable, as comfortable as one could get in these wooden chairs my wife had picked out. His face wasn’t tense at all, like mine looked. The corners of his lips were upturned, his eyes joining in on the smile. He playfully cocked his head from side to side. His expression was meaningless, constructed to give nothing away.

“Why my wife?”

“Didn’t we already cover this? It was that little black number. Simply ravishing. I thought it’d be appropriate that she be ravished for, oh let’s say poetic symmetry.” I returned to my  silence. There must’ve been more.

“But why my wife, of all the people there? You knew she was my wife, and I’d be your instructor.”

“Well, if you’d like to dig deep, which I assure you your wife very much prefers, I didn’t necessarily know she was your wife, it was only readily visible that she was with you. Could’ve been your girlfriend. Or a hired date. Appearances must be kept up, right? But let’s assume I did know she was your wife, why wouldn’t I? Isn’t that just another layer of thrill? The wife of my future boss, I’d always have something over him, seems like a good bonus to me.” He was grinning by this point.

“Is that why you revealed it now? To get back at me for throwing you out of the program? Well congratulations, you’ve just made sure that you won’t be hired by anybody else either, which was still a possibility.” His smile flickered. “You’ve just ended yourself, and your career. Getting kicked out of the best of the best isn’t the end of the world, but this will be.” I had the upper hand now. “Think spending the last seven years training is going to help you flip that perfect burger?”

***

I didn’t have much time left to flip the tables back in my favor. “No, we didn’t so much as touch upon that precious art. We were taught that photographic evidence is rather useful though, dear teacher.” The color drained from Michael’s face. He knew where this was going. Explicitly describing it would only help me at this point. “Let’s not forget that you’re my instructor here. Or were, at least. And I’m your failed student. How embarrassing would it be for the rest of your department to find out that you missed an affair between your student, one of your worst students, if your analysis is any indication, and your wife? Very embarrassing, I’d bet. I’d go so far as to bet that it’d hurt you more than revealing my insubordination would hurt me. Furthermore, since your recent judgment has ruined my plans of advancement, I have little to lose. You, on the other hand, aside from losing whatever I’ve left of your dignity, will be seen as a failure. You have further to fall.” We heard sirens in the distance; luck was on my side, I didn’t think I’d be able to control the situation any longer.

 “So what now?” Michael knew he couldn’t justify flashing his gun without a good reason for it. Any convincing reason would require my corroboration. Unless, of course, he explained the real situation. I knew he wouldn’t dare.

“Now, you reinstate me. Maybe throw an honor in there, a letter of your most heartfelt recommendations. And we tell the police that everything your neighbor saw was just a training exercise. That’s certainly plausible. Have Margaret go upstairs and get herself together. Maybe pour us a couple of drinks?”

***

I phoned in Sam’s renewed status in the program, citing a previously undiscovered talent for subterfuge. We sat in the living room, Margaret and I on the sofa, Sam in the chair opposite the small coffee table. “If you ever tell anyone, or if I see you here again, you are done for.”

“Tell anyone what?”

“What happened between you and my wife.”

“Nothing happened between me and your wife.”

If confusion were to be a universal human emotion, my face would’ve been the prototype. As it were, my mouth gaped open, my eyes darted back and forth, somehow remaining focused on Sam’s eyes as the rest of my body fell limp into the sofa’s embrace.

“Oh god, I’m sorry, Michael, please forgive me. He told me he had evidence of you accepting a bribe, showed me photos of you with absurd amounts of cash. He said he’d destroy the photos if I did what he said. Just to be quiet for fifteen minutes while he spoke to you, I didn’t know what he had planned, I swear, I’m so sorry.”

“I never accepted any bribes, Marge, never.” I never took money. Making it, on the other hand, wasn’t unheard of. Is that where he got the photos from? If not, he could’ve forged them. Either way, what the photos actually were is irrelevant as long as they served their purpose.

How careful was he? “What about my neighbor?”

“I gave her a couple hundred dollars. Nothing else. Told her to call the police as soon as she either saw a legitimate reason to scurry back into her house or when we walked through your door. She did what she was told.” He was beaming, enjoying the explanation.

“That was sloppy. Had you drawn her out innocently, she would’ve been a better witness. Still, there are a few things you don’t know. For one, you weren’t the only one fired. More importantly, you weren’t fired, you were being tested. Lastly, and most relevantly, welcome to stage two.”

Hear Me Out

Let me humor myself.

Though it’s already grown cold, drink some coffee.

When you write a story, do you read it aloud, to yourself, to hear how it sounds? What about a speech? Do you let the walls hear your speeches as you prepare them? What if they aren’t written, just a lecture, a monologue that flows naturally with no preparation, you certainly wouldn’t draw the line for when it’s no longer appropriate to talk to yourself there, would you? What if it’s a speech that you plan to never allow another person to hear? A dialogue with a silent other, intended to bring order to your thoughts?

Well, in this case, my other was my breakfast. The eyes of yellow yolk, bulbous against their white sockets, were not to be intimidated; they never blinked. The pickle of a nose never twitched. It never furrowed or wrinkled, never showed any emotions. My hunger, a byproduct of my anticipation, changed the ears of sliced turkey into what once was a wreathing mane that grew increasingly sparse with every lull in my speech. Appropriately, the silent other had no mouth analogue.

As it listened, I told my breakfast everything; how I’d finish it off, how I’d go to my job, then how I’d get to work, how I still frequently think of my first time and how I didn’t think I’d be eating a big lunch that day. I walked it through, and I apologize for this sounding too trivial to you for now, the chemical reaction that occurs when I lovingly mix acid with bleach. Puncturing its eye, I reviewed my plans for the day after, which is to say for how you wound up handcuffed to a desk with a coffee cup in front of you.

I suppose my speech then took a turn for the awkward when I confessed, to my breakfast, no less, that I felt lonely. Eggy was, though unwillingly, civil about it, passing over my admission without comment, disapproval or drama. But, rather more than sometimes, I wish that there was some drama, some reaction to my spee- stop struggling, would you?

Anyway, officer, where were we? Oh, I apologize, detective. Now, you’re here to hear what may or may not, I haven’t yet decided, be my confession, partially because I haven’t ever before had a chance to talk about my favorite topic with anybody.

While what I really want to talk about is yesterday, I would, on the chance that this does become a confession, hate to inconvenience you by not explaining my motivations first. It didn’t begin in my high school chemistry class but, as I did mark an occasion yesterday with something I picked up there, I feel like it’s a good enough place to start. My teacher, unremarkable in any way, thought it was best to warn us, chuckling all the while, about how bleach and ammonia, both common household cleaners, react with each other to release chlorine gas, which then interferes with your ability to breathe and, in a timely manner, results in death. He grinned, the class discussed the possibility of a villain that went by the name of Mr. Clean, we moved on to discuss the chemical reactions leading to nitroglycerin and that was that. That, as it happened, was in tenth grade.

Skipping forward to when I really solidified my hatred for ignorant people, I constantly questioned myself over what the point of their lives was, or what it could be. The disgust wasn’t jealously; I wasn’t envious of them as, unlike the world of whimsy clichés, ignorance very rarely actually leads to bliss. It does, unfortunately, lead to more ignorance. Stupidity joins in too, exceeded in magnitude only by how violently it aggravated me. I noticed a dash of idiocy being mixed in, serving magnificently to further justify my feelings. I just couldn’t understand how someone could live life without the faintest trace of curiosity. Could somebody who wasn’t at all curious care about anything? Could they care about life? Did they? Well, my curiosity got the better of me. But that creeping hatred didn’t just spring up all of a sudden of nowhere, it had time to grow and mature and so, when I finally decided to experiment with my beliefs, I didn’t start small.

I had all sorts of silly notions that first time; irrational conditions that I’ve since weeded out, rituals that arose out of fear, weaknesses that, in hindsight, made me not much better than the sort of people I despised. I told myself that I had to build the tools for the task myself. The self-inflicted burden was nothing if not a hassle, justified to myself with the fact that my subjects would be incapable of such work. The process itself was enlightening, serving to reaffirm my conviction. All such self-restrictions did. That’s all they did.

I gave myself criteria, one set allowing for a subject’s consideration and another requiring their exclusion. They had to be willfully ignorant but not have a family. Irrational in their beliefs but not happy. Going nowhere in life but not unfairly disadvantaged. The list I first set forth was endless, with all but these first six criteria boiling away when I realized their redundancy. The experiment was simple: their life would be threatened and, if they cared enough about it, they would live.

The first test subject was a janitor. His occupation had nothing to do with his selection. Eager to satisfy my criteria beyond any possible doubt, I arranged every sort of opportunity. A better paying though not quite as mind-numbing job was turned down on account of requiring too much effort. Debate of any sort was rejected out of apathy. No hobbies, interests or redeeming talents existed. A total lack of elementary knowledge, tested constantly on the off chance that I was mistaken in earlier cases, sealed his candidacy.

I decided on a tool; a muzzle-loaded, spring-powered gun with a barrel as long as my forearm that would fire a single projectile, a single time. The projectile I planned was a small metal ball wrapped in magnesium shavings, another memory from high school chemistry, covered by what was essentially a net, twisted out of wire, intended to help keep the shavings secure in flight. The gun functioned simply; the spring was compressed and locked in place, the projectile was inserted, a jet lighter ignited the magnesium, a minimal amount of air would flow through holes in the barrel to sustain the burning and, finally, the spring would be released. I was reasonably certain that an accurate shot to the head would result in death. Set to burn at thousands of degrees, the blindingly bright magnesium, originally intended as a way to help assure death, became, because of the brutality of its effects, a tool intended for punishment instead.

It was a crude design. Deficient in accuracy, range and power, I not only had but a single shot but I had to be dangerously close to take it. The risk involved was deliberate; if there was a failure on my part or success on his, how was I any better? The experiment itself was just as dangerous. It would happen in the garage below where he worked, in the early hours of the morning. Powerful speakers placed a short distance away from his car would announce that, if he considered continuing to live important, he would immediately leave the garage.

Jerking this way and that in confusion, he didn’t leave. He didn’t hear the click of the lighter as its flame erupted. He didn’t see the scattered rays of light that shined across the garage from the barrel holes as the magnesium ignited. With the bullet embedding itself in the back of his head, directly in his occipital lobe, I doubt he even saw the ground rush up at him. I turned away to shield my eyes and, with the back of his head now a candle, there was no point in staying to verify his state. His death did not make the papers. What was allegedly a police investigation into the matter ended as soon as it began. Nobody could be expected to have an alibi for where they were at half past three in the morning on a Tuesday and nobody cared about the recently.

Yes, detective, that was me.

However, I see now that the experiment was flawed. I know that the subject’s response was a justifiable display of shock and confusion. I nevertheless felt like I had offered a last chance, regardless of how unfair it might’ve been. It satisfied my premise. The second time, minimizing my risk while still abiding by my requirements, I built a gauss gun. Powered by electricity, it’s essentially a magnetic slingshot that can fire nails. More accurate and powerful than my first endeavor, the amount of research that went into its construction made using it all the more cathartic. The symbolic chance of escape I offered the second time was even less likely. By the third time, I skipped the process altogether and used a regular gun. The only remaining constant was that I always left some chance, however slim, for the victim, even when it was fully in my ability to remove all hope.

The last time, yesterday, was tenth in the list and, as such, was deserving of frivolity. A bathroom’s locks were worked on, modified to remain locked indefinitely after being closed once, the handles capable of doing nothing but taunting the one they trapped. Inside, chlorine gas continued to spew forth, filling the air. With the vents closed and the door, while fractionally open so as to not lock, sealed around the edges with a thin layer of rubber, the spacious unisex bathroom let no gas out. I knelt hunched over just outside the door, apparently tying my shoelaces, prepared to wait however long it would take for the only other person remaining in the building to need to use the bathroom. Twenty-three minutes later, I stood up, greeted the victim, mentioned that I thought I smelled a gas leak in the bathroom and drew her attention so she faced me while backing through the door, her hand closing it behind her absentmindedly. It took all of two seconds after the door clicked shut for her to start banging on it.

Which brings us to, well, us, here. There are two reasons for your being here. Rather selfishly, I wanted to, at least once before I die, talk at length about what I’ve done. I can’t exactly share all this with anybody without one of us not leaving the exchange alive and you can hardly expect me to tell my story to the embarrassments I dispose of. The second reason is punishment. Oh no, not you; my punishment for myself. As what I do is, if nothing else, a service, what gives me the right to endanger my future actions by allowing salvation to those I already ascertained as definitely deserving of my intervention? Such grievous idiocy is, according to my own standards, cause for punishment, is it not? These two needs, for my actions to be heard and for them to be punished, they go hand-in-hand, as fair punishment requires an honest account. It being necessary for my audience to also be my judge and, given the scope of my actions, it becomes obvious that my judgment would come at the hands of the authorities.

How to get through to you posed a dilemma; if I came to you, and, rest assured, you specifically are not special in any way, merely predictably convenient, on your playing field then the odds of not being able to trade the promise of a confession for the chance to give it uninterrupted were too high to risk. Alternatively, if I took you to me, it would break my pattern. In the end, the prospect of this speech overruled my principles. Unfortunately for one of us, I didn’t like my speech; I got carried away, it wasn’t nearly as grand as I had hoped for, I'd like to try again and I can’t start all over with you as it’s just not the same thing if you’ve already heard it before. Fortunately, this retelling of mine did redeem itself by bringing a fact I had previously overlooked to my attention; every time, I gave them some chance. And, if I’m basing the necessity of my punishment on the same underlying reason, stupidity, should I not also be given some chance? Fitting with the unlikely escapes I gave others, I gave an appropriately unreliable one to myself.

Detective, while I understand that you have sufficient reason to not trust my coffee, what with only being here because of a sedative in the cup you ordered in an empty café three minutes before closing time, which, as a daily routine, is dreadfully vulnerable, it would have been decidedly to your advantage if you would have done as I said when I ordered that you drink the coffee or, for that matter, had you done so at any time since then. Unfortunately, though I promise I would not have interfered had you tried earlier, I don’t think I don’t think I can let you live long enough to get at the key to your handcuffs that I left at the bottom of the cup now.

Shifted-Draft

“Just ask for a seat. I read a study on this, chances are you'll get it. Or you won't, and then you can mock me for it. Seems like a win-win situation for you.”

“She's really hot, and she has this convenient lack of personality that really soothes any issues I might have with abusing her dipsomania.”

“So then he said 'it's not you, it's, well, it's not me either. It's your sister.'”

The chuckle that accompanied that last quip was the last thing I overheard before I slipped on my headphones, the music already playing. Today's playlist was a blend of several of my favorites. I'd combined my usual jazz filled hiphop with my selection of depressingly angry rock, throwing in the soundtrack to a favorite game of mine, a war simulation that didn't take itself seriously, the soundtrack it was paired to was suitably and equally over-the-top.

I have a good memory. I entertain myself by glancing at one section of the train, closing my eyes and then counting how many people are sitting there. I'm rarely off by more than one sleep-deprived strap hanger. That's very impersonal though. What I find far more interesting is focusing on a single person. I'll remember all the aspects of their face, the shape of their nose, the color of their eyes, how much makeup they've caked on that day, how thick their eyebrows are, whether or not their lips are chapped, everything. Then I'll close my eyes and reconstruct them in my mind. But that, in itself, is hardly interesting. There's no challenge in reproducing what's already there. Instead, I'll modify the nose, change the eye color, maybe add a mole or two. Just as well, I don't have a photographic memory. I instead remember faces as a group of aspects, as a group comprised of a nose, eyes and a mole. This simplifies the modifications as I'm not bound to any artistic integrity I might have had if I could remember reality as it actually is.

It always astounds me how packed a train can be and, at the same time, how apathetically impersonal it is. I can stand close enough to somebody to smell their breakfast and yet not know anything else about them. I can be closer to strangers than I am to my family during dinner or to my classmates during lectures. In fact, if either of those two situations had people as close to me as they are right now, it'd be uncomfortable. But here, in the train as it passes over the bridge and the sun streams through the acid-scratched windows, I stand with my headphones set to an uncomfortably loud track that's just starting to build up its bass beat with a half dozen people within 3 feet of me. And I close my eyes, bringing forth from my memory the scenario that's around me.

The image of the blond girl standing in front of me pops up in my mind first, her face a blur for a moment before I set to the task of clearing away the mist. Her green eyes sparkle into existence, framed by her thin eyebrows. Her hair brightens in luminance as I trace its ends while remembering where they should fall. Over her shoulders and down past her bust, I recall. Her blue shirt comes forth as I trace hair past it, the curve of her bust traced and altered until I'm satisfied I have the proper dimensions. Almost as an afterthought, I add on the thin black strap of her bag, over emphasized in a pathetic attempt to make it up to myself for nearly forgetting about it.

I set about filling in the rest of the passengers around me, another girl standing next to the blond, her back towards me, the man to her left, one hand wrapped around a rail, the other clutching a book, the young man to my left, leaning against the door in a misguided attempt to fall asleep as the light shines in his face. I filled in the floor, a messy thing with a streak of black where a bicycle's tire had an unexpected meeting with a shift in momentum. I went back and made the blond girl's bust a tad bit larger. After all, if I'm entertaining myself, might as well entertain all of myself. The two men directly next to me were altered as well. I thought about how the high schooler to my left would look with more facial hair, superimposing the image of hair growing out of skin over what unfolded in my mind; decided that he looked worse for the wear with more hair, instead removing it entirely, having the hair simply fall out of the skin in my zoomed in view.

Predictably, I lost interest quickly. He fell through the floor, vanishing from the landscape. They all did, one at a time, timed to the beat now rattling through my head. Each time the bass struck and I could feel the vibrations meet in the center of my head, another passenger met their end in my apathy. This too grew boring. The apparitions left with little fanfare. Perhaps a more violent end would be suitable.

I opened my eyes. Everybody was still there. The high schooler to my left now wide awake, apparently having given up all attempts at sleep. The bookmark in the man's book changed places. The blond girl's actual attributes incited a twinge of disappointment. The sun no longer shines through the windows, we're underground now. That won't do. I close my eyes again.

All the familiar characters pop back into existence, their memory persisting, sharpened as I focus on the various details. This time, I make sure to add the girl's bag, I adjust the location of the man's bookmark, I place a sombrero on the high schooler, solely because I can. Pleasantly, we're back on the bridge, the sunlight diffuse and permeating the train from every angle. I animate the characters in my play; none of them talk but all of them fidget. Right then, the track changed in my headphones, the lull in noise triggering a serene pause in the fidgeting crowd in my mind. The few seconds of inactivity have the effect of sending my thoughts wandering. How are the other passengers handling the swaying of the train? Wouldn't it be surreal if the railings swayed as well? Well, resonated, to be specific. But that wouldn't work, they're connected to everything else, they'd have to be separated. And so they were, the railing to my right floated by itself, resonating because I willed it to. That only lasted until the next track declared itself with a thundering crash, a sound I associated with disassociation. The railing burst apart into a cloud of metallic shards, each catching the sunlight in a different way. These fragments, in turn, vaporized into tiny particles, coming together to form a grayish mist of reflective dust. This was more like it. I knew the track that played now. I knew when it wound ramp up the power, when it, one time only, toned it down only to increase the magnitude of the subsequent surge, I knew it. And I intended to do it justice.

At the next clash of drums, I saw a wave of disintegration ripple through the train's cabin, the resulting particles falling away through the bridge into the water below. Its cessation took with it the advancing threshold of destruction, leaving my attention to focus on the cloud of dust that was, just moments ago, tons of metal, plastic and human flesh. How many molecules were there? What would immediately condense into that cloud? From all those people, how much fat was there floating in mid-air? How much protein? A flash of curiosity struck and, with it, an answer coalesced: a muscle came about from one of the concentrated portions of the cloud. Half a meter long, a spasm contracted it, pulling at invisible tendons only to tear itself to shreds as the music progressed. The chorus passed around again, taking with it another third of the train, this time from the opposite end. This was hardly interesting the second time around.

It would only make sense, there would have to be wind flowing through what was left of the cabin now. It would then follow that wind would sometimes gust up, especially at the altitude of the bridge. And what interest would a gust of wind be if it didn't take with it a handful of passengers who now had no railing to hold on to? Their stoic silence as they fell the dozen stories until they hit the water matched perfectly with the calm interlude that I had been waiting for.

My attention turned back to the blond in front of me. Her hair, now caught by the breeze, gracefully wafted about her as the tips began to evaporate. The muscles around her mouth budged, her mouth about to open. The oncoming barrage of bass spared me, however€, from whatever inanity I might have imagined her to say. She, along with the oblivious pair of the sombrero wearing high schooler and the dedicated book reader, abruptly changed her preference in the state of matter category, no longer holding my interest. A final gust of wind blew them away almost as soon as it was possible. The disintegration of their memories was complete.

My eyes opened to the bustle of a major station, with enough passengers stepping off the train to allow me a seat. Sleep did not elude me.

I opened my eyes, a sense of confusion washing over me. An absence of something made me feel naked, deprived of something I felt was customary and, even more than that, necessary. My wireless headphones were still on my head, I felt my wallet in my pocket, my phone in the other, my bag was on my lap, cushioning my elbows as my palms dropped from the cradle shape they’d been forced into by my forehead while I slept. Something still felt off, my music should’ve started up by now. I’d assumed I was in between tracks but the interval was too long by this point. Maybe I hit the pause button on accident while I slept, or the battery died. I hurriedly reached for my pocket, thrusting my hand in only to find a pack of card I’d forgotten about. More importantly, the phone wasn’t in there. It must’ve fallen out and been stolen, or I’d been pick-pocketed. The connection died when the train pulled away and out of wireless range.

“I need to wake up.”

In Progress- Short Story. Based on previous Rachel excerpt.

Circumstance

"Get up, Rachel." A voice intruded into my dreams, slowly solidifying. "Get up." A rather annoyed voice. "Rachel." It sounded again, increasingly aggravated. I felt a gentle push against my shoulder. Then another, and another and I awoke, my brow and nose damp. "Up? Get up, Rachel."

"What, wait, what, where, who are you?"

"You're in a hospital, of sorts. You've recently acquired a rather interesting ability. No, no questions, I'm not in the mood. Nor do I want to hear your sleepy string of pointless questions. Care for a coke?"

"Umm."

"I'll take that as a yes. Get your things together." I realized I was wearing a gown, my clothes, a frantic glance around the room later, were on a nearby chair. "I'll be back in five minutes, be ready."

Where was I? I looked around, not seeing anything noteworthy, the chair with my clothes on it, a window that showed only sky, a glass of water on the table to my left. Oh, he'd spilled a bit onto my face so I'd wake up. A hospital? Why? I felt fine. I didn't remember how I got there though. I was, I think, on my way home from class, walking through the park when I saw a man walking towards me, talking on his phone and then, I. And then I woke up with Mr. Coke crudely splashing my face with water?

"Ready?" came the tense question from outside the door. Had I been trying to remember for 5 minutes?

"No, one moment." I peeked under the sheets, yes, my gown was long enough to cover everything, got up and dashed to my clothes, pulled my jeans on as quickly as I could while hopping towards the door, at which point I stood with my back against it, threw off the gown and put on my shirt. I felt accomplished.

"Can I come in?"

I stepped away from the door, expecting it to open. "Yes."

"Great. Now come out, we've got to go." He handed me a bottle of coke as I stepped through the doorway. "I'll be brief. I don't want to be here today. Usually, we'd watch you..."

"Watch me?"

"Watch you for development and see if you contracted...

"Contracted?"

"Contracted the ability or not. In your case, and this is the first time we've seen this, you exhibited it in your sleep, saving us a great deal of hassle."

"Exhibited what?"

"Great, you're a curious one. Let's make a deal. You don't interrupt me and I get to finish my sentences? That sound fair?" He didn't wait for my answer before starting off down the hall. "Follow me. Here's what happened. One of us lost control and passed on his ability to you. You passed out, as everybody does. Realizing what happened, he made sure to bring you here. Got it so far?" I opened my coke in the momentary lull, the hiss of pent up gas sharp in the quiet hallway. I winced at the accidental impoliteness.

"Yes. But, what ability? I feel just like I always do."

"It's better to see it first hand, in all its splendor. That'll come later." We'd been passing by doors at regular intervals, finally stopping next to an entrance to a staircase when his phone began vibrating in his pocket. He picked up, glanced at the display, flicked it open with a thumb and brought it to his ear, his face betraying dismay almost immediately. "Yes, sir. Of course. And then I can leave? Okay. Ha." His face brightened up, mouth curling into a smirk. "Yes, I'll tell her. I'll be right there."

"Tell me what?"

"You didn't wonder how we knew that you had exhibited it in your sleep, did you? The room you were in had cameras installed, as does every other room for that matter. I was told to tell you that they are marvelous."

***

"You've got a new assignment, Mark."

"Oh?"

"Yea, a babysitting deal."

"Great. Why me? Are they at least capable, not like the dull witted hunk of lard I had to run through the paces last time."

"She's capable. Attractive, smart. Aced the tests we laid out for her. Most importantly, she's done previous work with an NGO."

"So she's a candidate for the African?”

"Yes," John said, "you'll meet her tomorrow, give her a bit of a demonstration, alright?"

"My usual?"

"What else?"

***

I stood in front a row of monitors, a keyboard and mouse laid out on the otherwise clear desk. John hit a switch I didn't see previously on the side of the desk and a panel of the desk slid back, uncovering a series of switches, labels too small to read from where I stood. John flicked the left-most switch, triggering the wall behind the monitors to split apart, revealing a gigantic open, empty room before us, basketball court markings on the floor. I walked over to the side of the desk and gazed down through the window, hearing another three clicks coming from John's fingers. The room slowly underwent a massive transformation. A row of bulls-eye targets descended from the ceiling, held firmly in place by curved metal rods. A dozen steel beams extended out of themselves in ever thinning sections across the width of the room, locking themselves into tiny hatches at the opposite walls. Another set of bulls-eyes popped up at the far end of the room. Moments later, three of the monitors flickered on, displays constantly panning camera feeds of the room in front of us.

“There are a dozen cameras in that room, each recording in high definition for later review. I can view any of them live from these monitors or review the footage later. The fourth monitor here,” he pointed the remaining blank monitor, “is currently displaying the feed from another room. The lights are off, so the camera can’t see anything.” John clicked the last button in the line-up while explaining the set-up to me. Moments later, a tiny microphone protruded from the desk. “I don’t know why they had to hide that. We gave the tech guys a bit too much money to outfit this room and they got a bit too happy.”

I ventured a question, still unsure of what exactly I was doing here and what the room was for. “Is this where I get to see it, whatever it is, first hand?”

“Yes. One moment.” He fiddled around with the mouse for a few moments, tapped the microphone and spoke loudly into it, “Mark, please report to the room immediately.”

I heard the command echoed over the PA system and, shortly after, Mark’s vulgar response coming from outside the door, “The room. What room? Could he be any less specific? Immediately. I would get there immediately, if I knew what fucking room I had to go to.”

“Mind opening the door and telling him ‘the fucking practice entry room,’ please?”

I opened the door, peered out, saw Mark, or I guessed it was him, as he was the only person in the hall, and figured that doing what John had said would probably be better for me than flinging a curse at Mark, who, by this time, saw me and was heading in my direction. I squeaked out “the fucking practice entry room,” my voice breaking mid-way through as I realized I made the wrong decision.

He continued walking towards me, slightly faster than I thought one could possibly walk, until he stood right in front of me, stared at me in my quickly averting eyes, and asked a simple question. “You Rachel?”

Almost as soon as I regrettably answered “yes” Mark waved his hand in between us, a foot away from me. An excruciating immediately pain shot through my chest as if someone had slammed a book against it. I stumbled back into the room, losing my breath.

“Flashy, yes? Too flashy? You asked for a demo, John.”

John sighed in what I hoped was disgust, “just go to the entry room.”

***

The fourth monitor flickered, then steadied as I focused on Mark’s bright red hoody, a splash of color against the gray floor, what looked like a soft gray chair and the metal table in front of him. He stood there, looking directly at the camera. “What are my options?” he asked, his voice coming clearly through a speaker to my right.

John fiddled with the mouse again and zoomed the camera into the table, “open the top drawer, pick whatever and however much you want. Make this good.” This time his voice only sounded in the Mark’s room, no longer routed to the PA system. Mark opened the top drawer, revealing a bowl of ball bearings, two solid metal knives with a ring on one end and their accompanying sheaths nearby and, lastly, two pistols with four magazines surrounding them. “Make it look good Mark, please.” Mark grabbed a handful of ball bearings, tapped a button on the wall to his left and step through the still opening door into the large room, immediately appearing on two of the other three monitors. The small room’s camera feed, still zoomed in, showed the remaining knives, pistols and their ammo, and the mostly full bowl of little metal balls. “First phase, Mark, once you’re ready.” Standing in the middle of the room, he alternated between staring at all the cameras, occasionally chancing upon the three that were being displayed on our monitors.

“I’m ready, what’s first?”

“The targets in front of you.” Mark didn’t move quickly, instead, he poured some of the ball bearings into his pants pocket and held the remaining few out on his left palm.

“Rachel,” he yelled, “watch this.” With that, one of the metal spheres levitated above his palm, his right hand drawn back, waving around as if he was putting on a magic show. “Which one should I hit first?”

“Go ahead,” John whispered, “pick.”

“The one on the left.”

Immediately, Mark’s right arm locked into place, forming a perfect line between the target, the hovering sphere and the flat of his palm. An instant later, a bell rang and John moved one of the cameras over to the target, now with a little glittering indent at its center. “Which one next, Rachel?”

“Challenge him,” John requested.

“All of them, of you can.”

Mark poured the bearings into his right hand, “seriously?”

“So you can’t.”

With that, he was off. His right arm swung forth, hurling the dozen bearings at the two targets that were the closest to each other, setting off two bells. He brought his arm back in, only to swing it out a split second later, a third bell rang. He held out his left palm again, twitched his right hand twice, two more bells rang. “Satisfied?” I could easily see his grin, zoomed out as the camera was.

“What just happened?”

“And this, Rachel, is why we record this.”

I saw now, in slow motion, what Mark had done. First of all, he hadn’t poured all the balls into his right hand, he’d kept three in his left hand, tightly closed into a fist. So that explained the last two targets. What about the other target? The feed continued in slow motion. Ah, a knife. Mark had a knife, just like the kind I saw in the drawer, in his left hoody sleeve. It slid out, as if on cue. Marked simply grabbed it from his left wrist and let it fly on its way to the target in one fluid motion. “Wow” was the only thing I could come to say.”

“Now the higher targets, please.”

“How’ll he reach those, John, they’re angled up, away from him, he’d be on their level or arc it up there or…” I stopped talking as I saw Mark begin to float up in the air, slowly turning head over heels, his face inches away from one of the horizontal bars at one point, until he touched down on the ceiling, his hands resting on his hips.

“Now, John?”

“Any time you’re ready.”

Midway through John’s reply, Mark’s right hand shot forth, a metallic blur accompanying his pink flesh. His arm barely moved as he picked off every target with slow, controlled shots from a pistol, again, the same sort as the one in the drawer. “But he didn’t take any from the first room.”

“Luck favors the prepared. The prepared favors knives and his right hand.”

***

Mark was an excellent teacher. While lacking his flair, Rachel quickly matched his level of control. She preferred a gun for target sessions, having an easier time with it than she expected, the ability allowing for the management of recoil and more precise aiming. “You’re ready.”

“For?”

“Our overseas operation.” Rachel had heard of it, knew that they were involved in humanitarian aid in Africa, employing their rather unique skills to negotiate with local warlords. They’d flat out bribe the lords in return for safety and protection instead of harassment and corruption. As a result, their efforts were more successful and they enjoyed a certain degree of freedom and security usually absent from such situations. Certainly more secure than her previous noble excursion.

***

Rachel peered out of the metallic frame, gingerly taking her first step down the plane's steps as she inhaled her last breath of African air and involuntarily welcomed the bullet into the crevices of her gray matter. The resulting stain on the airplane took far too long to remove.

Seriously, I forgot what I titled this poem. Memory pending. Edit: "My Position."

What is repetition if not

an unnecessary submission

to rhyming by attrition?

Attrition if not just

a lack of ambition?

Ambition if not the

lack of tradition?

Tradition is then but

the repetition of a lack

of one’s own volition.

Adjusting the Primal

I came into pain. I did not remember how, nor did I recall, much less understand, why. Even after sorting out my thoughts and analyzing them immediately after, no explanation came. My memory of the event, on the other hand, was changed as a result of that analysis.

I, a needle stuck in my right arm, felt the first effects of unconsciousness pulling at the edges of clarity in the doctor’s office. This was momentarily after assuring the nurse I felt fine and moments before updating my answer to a significantly less reassuring “okay, now I don’t.” My next memory was unlike any other I’ve ever experienced in my life. I did not understand who or where I was, satisfying the most basic levels of awareness only through the acknowledgement of pain. To all intents and purposes, I was not thinking. I did not process information, no immediate conclusions or logical streams of thought carried themselves through my mind. I was aware of only, and awareness in fact was, an uncompromising pain that spread through every particle of my body, pain receptor-free brain excluded. My brain was instead plagued with the fear of incomprehensible information, a pain all its own.

The pain varied in intensity but did not subside, waxing without the relief of waning, every additional increment building upon what was already there. It increased, pushing past what my brain assumed was the maximum, until it crashed down, allowing room for self-awareness, the realization of what had happened and my usual method of dealing with misfortune: cynicism; “Oh, I fainted.” It was the first thing I said, hopefully as nonchalantly as I intended to, though I had more pressing issues to deal with at the moment.

Immediately, I sought to figure out what had happened. Since I still remembered the pain, sharp though dulling in my memory as the seconds clicked by, I assumed it was in my short-term memory, generally spanning over a length of 20-30 seconds. This knowledge was, at that point, essentially useless, a mere attempt to control something utterly beyond my control. While I remembered the pain itself, I had no way of describing it. Metaphor after metaphor spilled into my mind, followed shortly by past experiences, each inadequate in its own way, each a failure in my attempts to describe my experience to myself. Salt spilled into an open wound, literary, but not a personal experience, it’d have to make room for something more relevant; hitting a nerve against a hard object, too numb, though it provides the necessary saturation of an area. A punch to the solar plexus replicates the feeling of helplessness and defeat, but doesn’t carry with it the literally mind-numbing pain. Walking on a leg that decided to fall asleep due to poor circulation has the same numbness and unavoidable pain, though blown away in magnitude the way a candle would be by the sun’s wind. To this day, I have no comparable experience nor can I in full honesty claim that I understand what caused what I can only describe as an episode, or put more optimistically, a lesson in primal fear.

In hindsight, remembering a time when I wasn’t thinking is odd. I remember seeing my surroundings, the office, nurse and doctor, called in as soon as I blacked out, but not understanding any of them for what they were. I can’t remember any sounds, yet I assume the nurse and doctor were talking to me. I remember the wave of awareness that cleared away the incomprehensible mess of information that I was unable to process, yet not the state, or lack thereof, of awareness that preceded it. It is in essence a memory dominated so thoroughly by one characteristic, pain, that it is a memory of pain, with everything else, including memory itself, giving way to allow more for nothing other than more pain.

At the same time, it is a memory I know I have modified. This occurred partially as a result of thoughtful contemplation, intended to clarify the record of events, as well as the natural processes that govern my mind’s workings, specifically my memory. The human memory works by association but I can not adequately imagine the level of pain I felt, or a comparable one. Instead, my mind defaults to the closest approximation I can conjure up, the result of several metaphors and other memories blending together to create as close a memory as I can, based upon what I remembered directly after my cynical statement and the inevitable mental review that followed.

I remember seeing the nurse but not comprehending her image, assigning her, as a concept, to her image in my memory, retrospectively. The blurry memory of the room allowed me to figure out my body’s position and my head’s angle as slouching to the left and looking down, again, purely in retrospective analysis. Judging from the self-preservative tendency to test one’s body by moving, I can guess that the waves of pain were caused by attempts to move, with each successive wave inciting further movement, a painful feedback loop.

I can not help but wonder if my mind could have handled the situation in a different way. Did searching in vain for the source of pain delay my eventual awareness, and with it, the pain’s alleviation? If I was less inquisitive naturally, would I have been spared some fraction of pain? By even entertaining the idea, I’ve accepted a grain of blame, yet another part of the memory that I know, for a fact, I added. These modifications were made immediately, as I reviewed my short-term memory and processed it. Later, as well as in the course of this documentation, these modifications were reinforced, cemented in their truth by repetition and acknowledgement.

What my memory boils down to is the unexplained removal of the very nature of my being from my conscious awareness. Essentially an inhuman memory shaped by human thought.

Extrapolations from Zinn’s A People’s History Regarding the Origins of Colonial Racism as a Method of and for Class Warfare

Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States[1] spends a substantial amount of time analyzing the use of racism as a system of control over both the enslaved population and the poor white lower class, essentially manifesting itself as a conscious effort on the part of the rich white upper class to use class warfare in order to maintain stability and to quell uprisings. To begin, Zinn introduces the origins of America's system of black slavery: necessity. In 1619, Virginians were hungry, unable to grow enough food but made aware of tobacco's value on the other side of the Atlantic, unable to enslave the Native Americans, unable to force white servants to work the necessary amounts and unwilling to work themselves. Thus they resorted to slave labor, in the form of blacks shipped in from Africa, prior to any attempts at a justification from the argument of inferiority that the ideology of racism presents.

Zinn is careful to make clear that slaves were imported for inhumane treatment before the racist justification sprung up, noting that, by 1619, a million blacks had already been brought to South and Central America to work as slaves.[2] The counterpoint to this is that whites were also “imported” as indentured servants and abused, so the malignant treatment of blacks was a general one and had little to do with their skin color and/or origin. The reason for the black people's selection for chattel slavery over Native Americans and whites is further expounded upon; they are entirely out of their element with no structure to support them. Slavery thus begins in colonial America simply as a matter of convenience and the quest for profit. This, however, is not how it ends.

This brief summary of black slavery aside, the plight of white indentured servants should be discussed on nearly equal grounds, both for moral reasons and those of context. Masters were allowed to beat, whip and rape their servants, pack them like sardines into ships on their voyage to America, restrict their marriages, and generally treat them as if they were slaves.[3] Black slaves and white servants would spend their free time together, whether it for recreational (drinking, coitus, etc) purposes or for attempts at escape. This growing unity between the enslaved blacks and indentured whites led to fears among the upper class, who were dangerously outnumbered by the lower class and eventually, in steadily more regions, by both the white servants and black slaves individually. Clearly, this represented a significant chunk of the population with nearly identical goals and, essentially, nothing to lose and thus revolts did occur, the upper class was scared and measures had to be taken.

It is this similarity to slaves that necessitated the creation of a division between the two groups, both submerged in poverty. One of the most blatant examples of manipulation is the employment of poor whites to handle blacks, such as in the case of Virginia's slave patrols in the 1720's.[4] Not to be excluded, the Native American people were used against the black population as well, as the Creeks and Cherokees earlier had "harbored runaway slaves by the hundreds," [5] which was, obviously, impermissible. Instead, a "combination of harsh slave codes and bribes" helped avert that potentially disastrous union.

Interracial marriages and pregnancies were common and, therefore, a problem. Had there “been the natural racial repugnance that some theorists have assumed, control would have been easier.” Since it wasn’t quite so easy, a grand jury, in 1743, “denounced ‘The Too Common Practice of Criminal Conversation with Negro and other Slave Wenches in this Province,’” As a result of this and other rulings, interracial marriages were prohibited and the offspring was deemed illegitimate. This resulted in the mixed race offspring being “stuck” with the colored label and the white parent remaining purely white, promoting the perceived purity of the white race. [6]

As evidence of Zinn's agreement with the notion of racism being used as a method of control over the lower classes, both those innocently perpetuating it and those suffering at its hands, he agreeably quotes Edmund Morgan who "sees racism not as 'natural' to black-white difference,” because of the earlier evidence of their fellowship, “but something coming out of class scorn, a realistic device for control." In addition, Morgan's own words are included; "If freemen with disappointed hopes should make common cause with slaves of desperate hope, the results might be worse than anything Bacon['s rebellion] had done. The answer to the problem, obvious if unspoken and only gradually recognized, was racism, to separate dangerous free whites from dangerous black slaves by a screen of racial contempt." [7][8] Bacon’s rebellion met its end with surrender, having a total roster of “‘four hundred English and Negroes in Armes’ at one garrison, and three hundred ‘freemen and African and English bond-servants” at another garrison,” positive proof of rebellion cooperation between indentured whites and enslaved blacks, with disastrous consequences. [9] Years later, further proof came about; naval impressments sparked a riot in Boston, described by a merchant’s group as a “Riotous Tumultuous Assembly of Foreign Seamen, Servants, Negroes, and other Person’s of mean and Vile Condition.” [10]

This proof, the immediate danger that presented itself so clearly to the upper class, forced the implementation of racist ideology as a method of oppression and division, occupying the minds and efforts of the poor whites rather than allowing them the possibility of successful revolt. Zinn covers the subject and inclusion of racist ideology into colonial America’s class warfare as part of his greater discussion focusing on the upper class’ efforts against the lower class, whites, blacks and every shade in between included. Our own course included Barbara Fields’ argument for racism as an ideology, focusing strongly on its present form and the practical aspects of it being an ideology, while Zinn’s additions provide the background info for its inception and the circumstances surrounding it, the perfect supplement.

---

[1] Howard Zinn. A People's History of the United States: 1492 - Present. New York City: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1995.

[2] Zinn, 25

[3] Zinn, 43-44

[4] Zinn, 56

[5] Zinn, 55

[6] Zinn, 55

[7] Zinn, 56 Note: Zinn quotes Edmund Morgan

[8] Edward S Morgan. American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975 (Taken from Zinn’s bibliography)

[9] Zinn, 55

[10] Zinn, 51