Aspects/Moment/Chapter 7

This week: A short sci-fi story, some Bukowski-esque fiction, and the next chapter of Serpent Rider!

Aspects

They sat in a park and watched the memories collect. They tossed them seeds and whispered hopes, but none of them ever grew. She was long years in this place, under this particular sun. He was younger, but still elderly by some calendars.
Taken together, in the Double Aspect, they were barely more than children. But the Single Aspect made them ancient.

They both appeared as young and strong humans, with bright pink flesh and shining eyes. But they’d paid for all that. Just as they paid for the park, the Aspect of Tranquility, the bench, and the time alone together.
She was decorated with golden hair and high cheeks. She carried with her those pale blue eyes that he found so lovely. Her clothing was as air, perfect, continuously flexing, breathing, and hemming itself to make her appear more than her Single Aspect.

He stared at her openly.

“I…” He began but didn’t finish. She touched his hand and looked out into the park. Two memories fluttered down to her feet. She couldn’t help but smile.

“Cain,” she put her hand on his lips. Nearby children chased a dog, dashing away with their small red ball. “Don’t worry. This is a transition. That is all.”

“But, what if something goes wrong?”

“Cain, who slew his brother Abel, and carried the regrets of man with him… You are suited to such worries, aren’t you? But perhaps not the infamy.”

He frowned. He didn’t like it when she made fun of him. It made him feel like a child. He never knew how much older she actually was. She wouldn’t tell him, and her Single Aspect was too powerful for him to find out.

“Such faces brave Cain makes.”

“Sarah, you tease when you should reassure, and reassure when you should doubt.”

“Oh?” It was her turn to frown. “The Transition will come, that is inevitable. And it will happen smoothly.”

“You’re not afraid?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“This is my tenth.”

Her tenth! He blinked stupidly. That would make her over two thousand years old.

“You lie!” He took her hand again and pressed it between his own.

“I do not. Sarah Kappa.” She said simply.

Kappa, the tenth in order of designation, as stated by the Transition Authority. It was a small wonder they’d had such luck with, well, everything. Their home purchase, the material modelers didn’t argue with her rather esoteric tastes. Their travel permits and Vacation Aspects were all handled discreetly and smoothly. Their diet, their vehicles, their debts. She must be powerful beyond belief!

“Sarah, I had no idea… I didn’t know! Forgive me,”

She interrupted him. “Shush.” Leaning forward, she kissed his forehead. “I’ll see you later. I’ll be home tonight. I’ve got some errands to attend to. Don’t worry. The transition will go smoothly.”

And then, she was up, and gone, walking through the park, scattering leaves and dreams as she passed.

Moment

Wrapping up a three-day bender, in the true tradition of Hunter S. Thompson, I find myself in a quaint little bar of dark woods and soft golden light. My comrade has long since disappeared. I left him on the doorstep of a friend’s house, half a bottle of beer in one hand, straight vodka in the other.

I’m drinking a “come-down” beer, something to just, you know, take the edge off, while I sort through the memories of the last 72 hours.

We started in a new location, a tropico-themed night club called the Red Parrot. As you would expect, we drank ourselves into gibbering monsters, fencing with the Fear and the Opportunity all night. There are periods, gaps in the continuity of my tale, blackouts brought on by wicked games and tests of manliness.

The wind was hot under our yellow parasol, hot and dry. Insects caught in what to them must surely be an epic gale came wafting in slowly to the beer garden where we’d conspicuously planted ourselves.

The bartender, a precious beauty in her mid-twenties, gladly serves us glass after glass of distilled poison, mixed concoctions, and, of course, beer. Playing the role of my attorney (a nod to mighty Hunter S.), my companion continues to absorb ounce after ounce of liquid gold. It was an impressive feat. Until we started gibbering at one another, gibbering in a mean language, harsh and guttural, clicking and rasping, head nods and hand gestures. Yes, by midnight, we’d drunk ourselves mad.

Upon reflection, perhaps we didn’t have far to go. My own grip on reality is tenuous at best. That’s not to say I’m mad, just more comfortable with my psychological dissension than, say, June and Ward.

While fighting with my tongue and throat to make words, my ears to make sense of my attorney’s gibbering, it occurs to me that something someone had said earlier was a simple fabrication.

Things are not likely to get better. In fact, the laws of physics preclude such events from turning themselves around. The second law of thermodynamics demands that we equalize. An object at rest tends to stay at rest. A life sliding downhill tends to continue to slide downhill. Yes, it dawned on me, as I motioned for another shot, that inertia itself was going to prevent my existence from righting itself.

The ice in my drink turns to slush, ruining the flavor and diluting the impact, a microcosm example of the world around me. Cars streak by our ensconced arena of self-destruction as if nothing is amiss.

How, I wonder, would they react to the wretched thoughts my attorney and I are tossing about?

“Horrific!” They would say. Or maybe vile. Filthy. Crude. Uncouth, Crass. Beastly. No doubt they would rise up as one enraged mob (their only reason for cooperation is to, of course, harm others or play football) and drive us, pitchfork and brand, from their sleepy village.

Their town is a pocket of perfection to them. A great place to raise kids, to live a good life, away from the hustle and bustle, all those troublesome things that come with civilization. People like us, my attorney and I, are anathema to what they believe to be the American Dream.

I think of Hunter S. Thompson again and his eternal quest to unravel the American Dream. Was it that he couldn’t fathom what the dream was? Or perhaps how easily we’d given it up for something similar?

“We don’t have Coke. Is Pepsi okay?”

No, young Miss, Pepsi is not okay. In most cases, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass what you mixed cheap whiskey with. But today, today, young lady, I won’t be subjected to your “good enough” culture.

Oh, but dreaming American we were. Dreaming of a quick fix, an easy out. Free money and righteous politicians. The proletariat, in its epic and unconscionable naiveté and innocence, continues to dream and be led astray. Cashing in their hard-earned votes for…

The man next to me meets a friend. He lies to her about what he’s been up to. He glosses over her question about his career, and I can see an unemployment check in his jacket pocket, hastily tucked away upon recognition of his long-lost acquaintance. I know it’s an unemployment check, because I receive them too.

…for a chance to lie to strangers.

Serpent Rider Continued…

Illustration by Eric Staggs 2023