Waiting...VI

"I wish I'd get out of this basement already, but I want to wait.  Back in the old place,


There was an older man with one hand who would walk to church every sunday.  The church was across the street from my parent's apartment.  Since I was a boy I'd wake up early and watch the man walk up the sidewalk.  He didn't smile unless it was cold as he always wore a suit coat because he always hid his stub in his front pocket.


In the bible, it says that if you believe that one day, after you die, you'll be given a new body.  I never went to church.  That man was my church.  I'm not sure why, I guess I should say, I'm not sure which church you'd consider me to belong to.  


The first day I watched him walking on the sidewalk was the day the teenagers on their bikes ran into him and he fell.  One of the boys went to help him up and whether the cut was new and he wasn't used to his deformity I'm not sure but the man offered his stump to the boy who got scared.  The boy pointed at the man and said something I've tried not to remember.


The man got up and ran to his refuge in the sanctuary of the church.  That was the last time I saw the man take his stub out of his front pocket.  Occasionally he'd wave with his hand, but only if it were cold.  He'd wear the suit on the warmest days and often looked pained and envious of those in comfortable clothing, holding hands, taking calls while drinking their coffees, riding bikes.


After we moved I'd still get up and go across the street to watch the man walk to church.  It was something I always needed.


I've been in this basement for some time now.  Every so often I hear the old woman stirring upstairs but I'm never really sure if its her or god as the thunder here really booms.  There's a window that I look through every so often as I plot some sort of escape.  I've seen plenty of people that I've hoped haven't seen me.  


I saw a woman with one leg, walking to the Church that's across the street from whichever place I'm at.  She was wearing a formal dress that went down below her knee and of her truncated leg.  She "walked" with crutches and disdain.


I want to stay until "Sunday" or whenever there's another Church service and see if this woman comes back.  I've been thinking a lot about all of this but everything I've come up with seems pretty unlikely.


I hope I can write again soon,


-A.J."

Waiting... V...

"Well, this didn't work out entirely as it did in my head, when I decided on going back to the city.


I'm writing this in the basement of a row home in Center city, probably the area that's most prone to violence.  I'm pretty hopeful and at least, confident, that the owner of the house doesn't know I'm here.  It's strange, part of me wouldn't mind having someone to talk with.....


It's been close to two 'days' since I've come back to the city and tried sleeping on the overpass.  It was terribly unsuccessful.  About a half 'hour' into my sleep I was awoken by sirens and there were several guards running at me from either side of the bridge.  I was cornered and thought about jumping to the street from the overpass but the fall could've been fatal or at the very least, highly injurious.  The idea was  inane at the time but I didn't abandon it.


The guards scattered 'voices' came at me as a rush but from what I was able to gather, I was inserted with a microchip after my arrest.  I assumed then that the tracking device didn't have a very large radius. The guards told me to put my hands up and surrender.  People were now lining the streets, taking in the scene.  Many were disappointed that they were unable to get their bounty for me and I guess others were upset that I was found so soon.  I heard one girl say, "Well, at least that was exciting while it lasted."  I guess I had begun to receive some sort of a cult following.  


I still don't understand how much of a threat I really am but the guards were cautious as they neared me and they seemed oblivious to know that the firearms they wielded were far more potent against me than any defensive I had.  I saw that the guards were wearing their ear muffs, deafening any weapon I contained.  


I remembered seeing a peculiar zip line, used for transporting cargo, just below the glass underpass.  Panicking, I looked down and saw a very narrow ledge on the bottom of the overpass.  As one of the sentries lunged for me, I threw my hooded cloak high in the air and stood on the ledge of the bridge.


"You want me alive, right?  If any of you take any steps closer, I'll jump."  I warned.  Hands outstretched.  The guards were immobilized and the leader of the operation ordered everyone to a halt.  I had a few moments now to eye up the bridge and the narrow ledge just below while the head guard attempted to reason with me.  


"Easy, buddy.  We're not here to hurt you, just take my hand and we'll all be okay."  
"Okay."  I said and as I reached out my right hand, I threw my hooded cloak off with my left and hurled it high in the air.  Before it landed, I hopped off the bridge and grabbed ahold of the ledge underneath it.  My one hand slipped and I screamed a little as the bystanders below me were sent into a tizzy of pain, holding their ears and screaming in agony.  


"Tell them to start the sirens."  I heard above me.  The head guard then began to climb over the ledge but his balance seemed to be off or something and he was unable to get over the railing.  Some of the other guards tried as I dangled but none were able to.  I had to move before the sirens would start and I'd most likely fall out of the paralysis the noises brought.


"Everyone, please remain calm and vacate the scene."  The head guard said from above as more reinforcements arrived, pointing their guns at me.  


"Step down from there son, or else we'll be forced to shoot."  A guard said from below.


I kept quiet.  One guard, who was capable enough, tried to grab me from above but he lost his balance and fell over the railing, landing on the guards directly below me.  The guard, fell so close to me that I thought I was for sure going to be knocked off the ledge and I grabbed hold of some sort of lever that sent me flying through the air, on the aforementioned zip line.


The trip took me further into the city than I've gone so far.  It lasted maybe a minute, but since I've been here my perception of time has become so inept.  The ride felt long.  It was arduous as trees, buildings and debris nearly truncated my flight...and my torso.


I was brought to the top of a building where the zip line goes though.  It wasn't very wide and I began feeling suffocated and suffered minor claustrophobic bouts that made me want to fling myself over the edge of the rooftop.  I came to when I caught a glimpse of the future city skyline that I'd yet to see and how it stretched long enough it gave me some sort of hope that this universe was where I needed to be. 


And though it was industrial and the planet looked just as tampered as the one I previously left, it made me realize this urbanized evolution is inevitable and mankind as a whole, we're just a bunch of artists and we're angsty and mad at god or whoever made all of this and we have it somewhere in our minds that we can make something better and off we go, making all sorts of steel structures and mechanical devices to make our lives simpler but all we seem to do is complicate things.


It was in the stupor that was the vastness of the city that I was taken down, involuntarily, on an elevator that took me through the different floors of the warehouse I was atop of.  I couldn't jump off the thing as I was probably 15 or so feet in the air, but it was a nice little tour.  I got to see about 7 floors.  The first four were workshops where tailors looked like they'd work.  I'm not sure the specific name here.  The next floor looked like, and I'd learn later, was the bedroom of someone who lived there.  The elevator made a brief stop on the second to last floor where an elderly woman sat in a chair, sleeping.  The tv was on and the static blue glow illuminated her face as she sat, conked out while I stared at her, frightened.  


A million horrible thoughts went through my mind, a million awful scenes played out there too and each ended with her waking up, calling the cops and I'd be taken away.

The elevator seemed stuck for hours before it finally lowered to the bottom floor, a basement.  I've been here now for quite some time.  I heard the old woman get up and leave a little bit ago.  I'm going to go investigate and use her bathroom but until then, she's got jars and jars of perishable canned goods that look like the peppers from the river.  


It's a pretty terrible place here, though, in this part of the city.  I'm not sure what the audible noise policy is here but I heard shouting and even some screaming for a good part of the night.  


Hopefully, I won't be caught and can write again 


-A.J."

Waiting...IV

"A man by the river told me about a kid with a prize on his head.  Said he wanted to find him and get him and his kid a nice place, outside of the city.


A few 'days' ago, I went back to the city after running away and saw a poster on a mortar wall.  It said I was wanted, alive, with a reward of 66 Ozels.  I'm don't know how the money works here.  I don't know how I feel being a fugitive, of sorts. I've never been wanted for anything.  Sometimes, I feel really awful thinking I caused all of this chaos.  I don't think I'm a bad person, I'd like to call it being unlucky.


I took the poster off the wall and it came with me to the river.  It's a nice little, bucolic place where I can escape to and there are things I can eat here.  Well, mostly only the pepper apples, they grow on tall, vine like trees that change colors three times a day.  The fruits are the sweetest when the trees are most vibrant and they're the hottest when the trees are dullest.  My palette has no preference but my stomach does.


I've spent the past two nights at the river.  It's been pretty constant and static as I've only survived and done a good amount of thinking and napping.  I got a visitor today though.


There was a man at the river today, El.  I heard him singing folk tunes while he came wading down the river.  The current brought him to me.  I don't think he knew I was looking at him, that's how I heard him.  He saw me eventually, he was unashamed of his singing.  A modest man, he introduced himself and I found a name on the spot, Jamie.


"Jamie?  That's a funny name.  What brings you to the tesch, boy?"  He asked, his feet resting in the water, sitting near me.


I was conscience of what I shared with him.  So far, he's the only person I've been  able to talk to.  I haven't seen him since I've come down here and that worries me.  Someone could've sent him to look for me.


"I like the water, it's a nice break from the city."  I told him, that was why he came too, that's really all we had in common, he went on to tell me a lot about himself.  I made sure not to let him get a good look at my face.


El used to work at a 'Pettatron' plant.  Pettatron's, he explained to me, are large, metallic towers where energy is made, similar to a nuclear power plant.  He told me about the time one of the 'Sta's' or, towers, almost melted, killing a handful of workings and how it could've potentially taken out a large portion of the surrounding populace.  El also noticed


Like my experiences talking to anyone 40 some years my senior, El wore out his welcome pretty quickly and didn't give me much room to 'speak'.  There were a few times I felt I should've caved, telling him where I was from.  Tell him that I'm the wanted kid with the reward on my head.  


Tell him that I'm alone and scared here and I'd just like someone to tell me things will be okay.  


Around the 5th hue, after talking for 2 or 3, El went back to whatever little Suburb or 'Zha' he resides in.  He said he was going back to his kid.  He told me he was some kind of an age, my guess is he's around 10 or 11, I could be way off though.  


El told me to get back to my parents.  And that got me thinking.


As he was walking away, I thought about her and how my face was all over the city and how she has to be incredibly curious as to who the wanted boy that yelled her name one day is.  It does bother me a little to know that there are guys like El looking for me, but that gives me hope that she is too.


It was around the 6th hue, under a lavender sky, that I packed my sparse belongings and made my way back to the city.  All day I was dreading going into the forest and hiding out there and maybe even running from the city.  


And now, I'm filled with a different kind of dread and new kind of excitement as I'm back and on the same overpass where I first saw her and drew all that attention to myself.  There aren't many people out now, especially entering the 7th hue. I've made sure to keep my face plenty hidden.  Looks like I'll be sleeping on the overpass tonight.  


I'm not sure where I'll begin, but tomorrow and for the rest of my time, here at least, as long as she's alive, I'm going to be devoting my time to finding her.


-A.J.

Waiting 3...

"Not sure anymore...


I seem to really be able to burn a bridge.  Like, when most people do, there are still remnants, fragments of the whole.  Eventually, the burnees can reunite and patch together the bridge fragments, reconstructing a new one.  It's a lovely process, leaving the two burners of the bridge's friendship even better than where they left off.


But when I burn a bridge, I incinerate it.  And the ashes, useless reminders, are always swept away in some happenstance wind, scattering the remnants of past friendships and depleting any possibilities of erecting the bridge.


I don't imagine, I'm safe here.  


I had good intentions.  I could've sworn, no, I'm sure I saw her.  Walking across the silver overpass with windows for floors near 16th street.  I saw the bottom of her sneakers.  I saw the golden flip of her hair, bouncing in a ponytail, just like before.  I saw myself and who I've fought death for and I, I just, lost it.


I yelled.


I yelled her name, what I thought her name was.  No.  I yelled what I know her name is.  I yelled her name and waved my arms and exclaimed: "It's me!  A.J."


The people passing by looked.  No one yells here, I now know it's prohibited, anything auditory that our ears are able to detect is contraband.  


From the overpass to the vehicles, all of the passerby looked my way.  It was eerie watching the heads of these people turn in unison. I froze.  Then, something came after me.


An undercover administrator, or some endorser of bureaucratic enforcement took off.  This man, or whatever creature he is, shed his skin and changed into this clear, gelatinous humanoid shape as I imagine is what happens to your body, just before incineration.  The man glided my way and I too began to run when piercing sirens, beginning at a pitch I was unable to detect, crescendoed to one that paralyzed me.  


In agony, I collapsed on the street as these awful, crippling noises continued.  Just before I blacked out, I saw a woman and her daughter put on what I know now are ear muffs that subdue these awful sounds.


I awoke in an exam. room.  A physician, in a forest green, tight fitting uniform, covered head to toe to avoid any contamination was prodding my temples as I came to.  The man was holding a clipboard and he had me hooked up to very simple looking machines the size of cell phones.  There were words on the tiny screens that I'd never seen before, numbers continuously running and changing.  Every movement I made, the numbers would raise and lower.


"Why did you yell?"  The doctor 'asked'.  I didn't know what to tell him.  I was delirious.  
"How old are you?"  I remained silent.
 "Are you that ignorant to uniform, societal procedures that you'd violate an open area like that?"  That's when I lost it.
"I don't fucking know."  I yelled, physically creating audible words again.  I stomped my feet like the brat that I am.  My voice hurt the man.  That's when I learned those living in this Universe, in this place have lesser developed ears that are sensitive to the human voice.  
"Yes!"  I yelled.  "Yes, yes I am that ignorant that I will continue to disobey what is asked of me."  The words I was saying did not seem to come from me, but from some outside aggression, withheld ever since I arrived here.


By now, the man was on the floor, fumbling with his ear muffs, one of his hands pressed to his ear, trying to keep timbre of my voice from replaying in his head.  Over and over.


I took his ear muffs from him as the alarms went off.  I saw him going for a switch near the door.  I was able to keep the cries of the sirens from hindering me like they did before.  I ran out into the hallway but forced myself to remain calm as the facility was sent into hysteria.


Men with ear muffs and sleek guns lined the halls along with the rest of the patients.  Thinking back, it was a pretty funny looking scene, seeing those men, donning ear muffs, wielding guns.  


Not every patient had their own set of ear muffs.  This helped my escape as some of the guards tended to the less fortunate.  I was able to sneak out, walking close behind a mother and her daughter, I posed as a part of their family and for a moment, it was nice to imagine myself as a son who would soon be consoled by his mother outside the doors.  Instead, I was the reason they were being evacuated and I treated myself as so when I pushed past them, out of the doors, and ran out into the twilight beginning of the day.


By the third hue, or mid morning, I had found some fruit to eat by the yellow river just outside of the city.  The fruit here has a mild kick to it, like a cross between a pepper and an apple.  I could only eat a few bites as my empty stomach couldn't really handle probably, the most foreign of foods any human has ever consumed.  It's an honor, I guess.  


I don't want to go back there.  But I must find her.  I just have to let things settle, for a while.  I could use someone to talk to.  She was always the person I would confide in.  


Hopefully the next time I write, our paths will have crossed again and our terms won't be as cross."


-A.J.

Waiting...2

(6,200,871,183,192,934,984,000 and not stopping

In some other estranged ice Universe stands a stack of sealed boxes; each time I encounter another obstacle I ship it off in a little partridge package.


But every so often I can't quite cram whatever it is that's antagonizing me into a mildly sized box.  In turn, this predicament only creates one more problem for me to solve and this tactic of running away ends up vexing me even more.

And even though the door from my dreams was the right one, I was brought to the wrong place.


Everything went as planned...I made it to 17th and Propelgate and turned the doorknob that somehow wasn't hot and made it down the long kaleidoscope hallway, chased by the heat that burned me to the bone in the 7 or 8 minutes it took me from my apartment.  Just like what I was told in my dream, the plasmic pool met me in an open door at the end of the hallway and, as the world I'd known my entire life was dissipated behind me, I dove into a fresh start.


My burns were cooled as I was handed another body.  My eyes that were nearly blinded from the sun saw new colors, beyond the spectrum of my past reality.  One of them shone so profoundly to me it momentarily-by some cathartic force-put me in harmony with the life I left behind and all felt, okay.


My rapture ceased when a forest was placed in my path. It came so abruptly in the center of the intergalactic portal I was ascending through that it scared and halted me.


I had never seen trees of the sort.  In the leaves shown incandescent words and those words were the ones that I needed to proceed towards my desired Universe.  One of the trees was split in half by a meteor, or some form of space junk, and I got a glimpse into the hydrochronology of this existence.  However, there were far too many rings to count.  They only distracted me.  


Another distraction-a breeze of hues up and down the color collective-passed through the leaves of the trees and the answers I needed.  It was beautiful but only aesthetic and I became inebriated in it as it took me away from what I really should've been watching.  Ultimately, it lead me here. 


The forest disappeared and I was left in darkness.  A sign, telling me there was no more time to study. In the absence of the forest came a question.  It wasn't audible, just a knowing.  I didn't hear it, I understood it.  


The question can't really be expressed...with words that is.  I guess, at its core, it was really just an inquiry, making me wonder what I wanted most and where I thought I could find it.  The leaves of the trees that were once swaying before me told me what I needed most, but I was too distracted by their beauty.


My answer, and all I could think about was that "She is me.  I am her". Someway it understood my answer and I was and taken here.  At my arrival, I couldn't help but feel this wasn't the place I needed most.


That's behind me, my poor sense of judgment is what brought me here and I must deal.   I felt at once what I did was wrong.  I felt that I wouldn't belong.  The worst of it all is it's how I felt before I met her and again after I learned the hard way that we were all dying.  I hoped a new place would bring about a change for myself.  


There's going to be a great deal of things to get used to...for one, the time.  As mentioned above there are no days, months or years here.  There is no "after meridian" nor a "post midday".  There is just a long count, a continuum of seconds that I guess began in the digital age and has been serving these people ever since.  As communication has been difficult so far-I will explain why later-I have yet to really communicate with anyone as I am still an outsider/visitor, I'm not up on the exact measurement of time, but I have heard several slang references about it all:


Some people refer to the time by the billionth place, "I'll meet you at 6 and count".  Other people go as far as the quadrillionth place, "I have to pick her up X at 6, 800, 200." and for those nostalgic that remember when this new way of keeping time came to be, they go all the way from the sextillionth digit(seeing as it's in the 6) to the last of the hundredth.  That may seem like a while for someone to live, but people live longer in this reality.  Science seems to have really progressed, at least, compared to where I'm from.


I still am not sure, but I'm lead to believe these people have survived the apocalypse that dinosaured my reality.


I'll also have to get used to the skies.  As the day begins, it starts white and clear and eventually changes throughout the entire color spectrum, from white to red to orange to yellow to indigo to violet. Then, for what would be an hour's time where I'm used to, it's dark.  Entirely, but there are so many artificial lights here you would never know.


With this limited darkness and immense light pollution, at least, in the Metropolis portion of this existence I'm currently staying in, I have yet to see any stars, other than the sun.  I know they're here.  They have to be.  I'm still waiting to hear it fall and I know it's the link that's between here and where I come from.


I would write about the weather, but she told me to never talk about the weather.  It changes, just like anywhere else.  There are bigger things to talk about.


They don't "talk" here.  Much like the knowing and understanding I experienced in the intergalactic portal that brought me, there are no audible forms of communication.  I have yet to really catch on, but people here simply understand one another.  I've come to understand vision is vital to communication because whenever I "hear" what people are saying I am looking directly at them and momentarily they may look at me.  Much like voices floating around, conversation here is just as ubiquitous, or it may even be more.  


I find that if I close my eyes or even avoid any type of eye contact, everything is silent.  It's both frightening and relieving.  In the parks here I see people staring directly at trees or books or even just there arms.  They must be experiencing this silence as well.


So, until I am able to reach out and until I am able to recover from my mistake I will continue as a guest.  I've been without food and water for two days, or however days are counted here.  Possibly the current terminology is two trillionths.  I'm also still getting used to my new body.  Something about this new reality made me sick, even though I hadn't anything to eat for a long time before I came here.  So I've been surviving, or however you look at it off of the putrid vomit smell on my sleeve.  Whenever my stomach growls I take in the awful aroma of past sickness.


And while all of this may seem difficult, the part I'm struggling most with is the aforementioned conception that I don't really belong.  It's something internal, that I hoped starting anew would help me forget, but it's just as memorable as ever.  Maybe I'm dwelling on it too much.  Maybe I'll find her and she'll remove it all over again.


I haven't gotten anything from here though, she may not even be here.  I've seen, or felt or maybe even "heard" rather, a good amount of the bodies I knew from previous realities.  Most existences here are far from their counterparts as I've come to know them.  It was a real sight, seeing Andrew, someone I graduated with who had swastika bumper stickers walk out of a Synagogue.  These are the types of radical opposites I'm talking about.  I almost approached him but that was shortly after I came here and started feeling ill.  He looked Orthodox, sideburns and all and that should be an indicator of when to find him on the Sabbath, however they honor it here.


The dark "hour" is coming and I'd like to get some rest.  I hope to both find myself and find myself here.  I hope I can write again.  And find her, all over again.


If anyone finds this, forgive my intrusion.


-AJ"

Waiting to hear the fallen star(running title)

The TV was now, only static fuzz; bleak remnants of what cable once was.  And just an hour ago, if you could tune in, any channel  you found, would've said the same thing.  The end had begun as the world grew tired and the sky began falling, so it was required that you stay inside, to avoid the debris, of the falling stars, falling so aimlessly.

But if you were so, ever so daring, the sky granted ten minutes, ten minutes withstanding. Of the debris and the heat and the skies retreat, from the atmosphere that once covered, a planet now bleak.

And so A.J. he sat, as close to the window so bright, alone in his apartment, for the last night. An hour ago, he only had ten but as each second passed his time, it grew lapsed.  And there is a door, he has seen in his dreams, that would take him away from the world he was seeing.

17th and PropelGate were the coordinates of the portal gate our hero would need to take in order to survive.  And the window was bright, as the sun drew near and with this plight our hero's heart palleted fear. The sounds from outside, those horribly, ghastly sky cries, were drowned in the static, of the television that died.

And for this, our hero didn't mind, and just in case, he never made it out alive, and someone, somehow were able to survive, so his life wouldn't go in vain, in his journal he scribed with blood from his vein--

(June, 21st, The First Day of Summer


What a fitting day for the world to end.  And what a time to not be able to find a pen.


It's a debilitating way to perceive all of this, but I know this day was made aware to me many years ago.  On the night I saw the sky open and the star fall from out from the sky's wound.  And ever since that evening I've been waiting, preparing for the noise that would come to follow such a descent.


It's also fitting that once I'm finally able to love and trust another person, it all gets cut short.  I so badly wish she were here with me at at this moment, and we could witness the world crash together, but it is not meant for me in this reality.


I have been given an opportunity no other person dying right now, or maybe ever has had and I have to utilize it.  I probably don't have much time, after writing this, but the streets are empty.  That will help so much.  Everything going right will help me so much.


I hope that door takes me where it did in my dream.  I hope I'll be okay with myself on the other side.  Both me, and myself.


I must end this, I'm running out of time and blood.  And with loss of blood will come loss of energy, but I'll be replenished, over there.


Here's to the apocalypse, and finding her, all over again.


Hopefully I can write more later"