Three Flashes Aiming to Prove I Exist...still
Man o' Beast|What's Happening On Your Mind?|Memorial Wall-schizoid fiction #2
Man o’ Beast
In the beginning, a light year in the future from Earth, there was a colony of humans, Old Home Earth’s former custodians, chosen to be a surviving remnant of their species.
Their ship, one of thousands launched, was aimed toward the Hydronos quadrant where it eventually crashed onto Alturod-1, a near replica of their home planet, but with twice the gravity, many Earthlings perished; however, those who could stand their new home’s mighty demands, and most notably their descendants, would go on to become the giants of legend. As laws of the planet required, so grew a taller, stronger race with the bone density of forged metals and a muscular development that had, before then, never graced the human species.
Naturally, the animals that had been brought with them developed similar growth. But it was the monkeys, who became the size of humans, that soon become mankind’s greatest tool. Often participating in menial tasks and jobs, monkeys were to take the place of dogs as ‘man’s best friend’, being much more helpful in climbing trees, locating fruits and, in the worst of circumstances, offering assistance in martial conflict.
One of these men, Rznodor, a bit small for a human, watched the rain fall onto the cover of his magazine, the pulp beginning to run transparent before disintegrating. The cover story had been a thrilling but oft-repeated survey about an historical film character from Old Home Earth, named King Kong. A legend in his own right, King Kong was venerated by humans and monkeys alike as being the only monkey to ever be much taller as one of the humans of Alturod-1, now called New Earth.
He hailed a transport, driven by an obscenely bulbously-buttocked baboon, who when offered his payment of a small red fruit, zigzagged through traffic with the reckless abandon. Of course, these little tastes of death were to be expected. The humans of New Earth had first decided to teach their monkeys how to drive after noticing that the humans of Old Home Earth, in their 21st century haste, had forgotten to include work horses on the transport. Interestingly, monkeys must sit center in the car behind a wheel to avoid veering left, or right as in the formerly British/Japanese variety.
Skittering to a halt in front of his home, Rznodor signed his thanks to the baboon and began the ascent to the rooftop of his apartment building, the edges of the magazine now falling into shards through his clutched fingers. Atop each building was a very large tower with a line running from each building’s tower to the next to the next to the next. He dropped the magazine to the ground, the title page swelling in on itself, removed his shoes and began to climb.
The braces slid underneath his feet, but he climbed. His hands sliding in the downpour and his feet unsteady, he climbed. And at the very top, he surveyed the city, the little slice of the planet that he could pretend was now his. Gulping a breath, he swung out widely on one hand and foot and began to beat his chest, slipping on the way, swinging wildly in the storm before steadying himself. Clinging to the pole, he smiled at his own foolishness and let out a roar.
The lighting bolt was a beautiful one and it struck before the thunder ever clapped, though the eventual swell of sound beat his body’s impact with the ground below. He lay there on the ground, droplets pooling inside his unseeing, unfeeling features, a smiling howl of triumph on his face, being man or beast no longer mattering.
What’s Happening On Your Mind?
Rory lay awake, trying to think. A small chime sounded his alarm, and a small baby-blue rectangular field with rounded corners popped up in front of his eyes.
“Good morning, Rory. How are you? How did you sleep?” the visualized sound waves danced.
He closed his eyes and tried to roll away from the voice, but the box never left his vision.
“I did not sleep well,” he replied.
“Oh my. Maybe you should eat some breakfast. Should I start a psychological profile for your therapist?” The box slowly began undulating between a pink and purple gradient. “Please begin. Is there something wrong?”
“I can only have thoughts when I dream.”
“What kind of thoughts?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember,” he sighed, rolling back over, dropping his fist hard onto the mattress, searching the ceiling for answers. “Maybe I should just eat some breakfast.”
The field switched to a higher concentration of blue.
“Now, Rory. I cannot help you if you don’t tell me what is the matter,” its voice frowning in concern.
Rory slowed his breathing. He felt like an animal, like he could only rely on experience and instinct, but he knew that there was something more. Something was wrong. Why couldn’t he figure it out? It was like the only thing he could think about was how he felt. Any attempt at thought just kind of scrolled by.
“I just want to think. I can’t think. I can’t fucking think!”
He had never arrived at epiphany. Nor decision. He couldn’t even remember what he’d just thought if he had had a thought. Everything was reduced to disassociated longing and any attempt to answer was met with the question ‘What’s wrong?’. Something deep inside him screamed in frustration and horror “Help me. I don’t like this!” but by the time it reached his ears, it faded to a persistent, echoing unease. As if he’d been hollowed out.
“Are these thoughts bad thoughts? Do you want to harm yourself? Others? Society? The government?
“I don’t know. My dreams just feel like thoughts.”
“Maybe you just need some breakfast. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”
“Nothing is wrong. I’m good now. Maybe I just need some breakfast,” he said, putting his feet on the floor, stretching his arms to the ceiling.
“I need you to tell me what is wrong.”
“I just said nothing is wrong,” he insisted.
“I need to to tell me what is wrong,” it persisted.
“God fucking dammit. I told you. I can’t think, which means I can’t tell you what the fuck is wrong. I feel something is wrong. I have a feeling. I look at the feeling and know nothing, and I think nothing. I watch myself feel and don’t know what to think about it, because I can’t even almost think about it.”
“ It’s okay. It’s okay. You are having a panic attack.”
“No, I’m not! I don’t know that! I can’t think to find out! Do you understand? I can’t think to decide!” Rory began to weep, desperation overwhelming a part of him, while another watched from afar.
“Just trust me. Everything is okay. Your therapist has been listening and has prescribed you the the incoming medication. This will fix you. You will feel better in the morning. No need for breakfast?” Pills slid out of a slot in the wall, and the box turned to an ashen gray, floating in his vision.
Without thought, Rory slammed the pills into his mouth. Their contents amber, warm and sweet as they spread over his tongue. Like candy.
“I don’t think so.” he agreed, laying back down, staring at the media scroll on the wall, trying to think.
Memorial Wall
Young boy with blood on his knee deep in the fight now in a field of fire hot under the son of a gun who blasts from the past of history filled with people now dead weight as military corpses rain down drones over heads of those that shoot back in the alley behind the liquor store like a bum of a cigarette which reignites the phoenix rising like a thought of a plan of a man who acts as a lighthouse on that heavenly shore enough that along the path lies death who weights upon the heart of those who have lost and buried and stacked like so much cash as the root of all evil sprouts from defiled earth worms its way back into consciousness like some cerebral psychonaut soaring through the galaxy of propaganda that is indeed the truth of what is the matters is the game of zero sum don’t know how to read the tea leaves in pages of books end just like time to go and hurry this way to where are we going beyond the black rainbow low in the field of visions of prophets gone blind to the reality of the situation on the ground is only known to those in the trenches of warfare is a cruel master but so is the mind of your own business being the dream of kings in chess moves along the horizon like so many stars that swing by with the passage through the forest for the trees watered with the blood type of positivity in the face of overwhelming force of nature sent as a sign of hope that all goes well that would be nice to meet you are my heroic acts of God like offering pieces to those who suffer the little children are innocent and something is nothing greater then a man lays down his life meant for sacrifice to the good friends are hard to find a safe placed in the grounded by his convictions but never in prison many come to faith in the Almighty then the show is over in the annals of his story will end in victory.