The creation of a story, a story in progress, daily to weekly additions...
http://www.darksky.org/infoshts/is071.html
January, 2024
As more and more parts of the ocean are leased out for wind farms that generate electricity and eventually change the landscape of 10% of each industrialized country's coastal area on the globe,
http://www.offshorewindfarms.co.uk/im/images.html
Space Marketing in Georgia, a well financed company, starts investing heavily into their lobbyists in Washington. If the ocean can be used for financial gain, why not the sky? And Space Marketing didn't even need 10% of the sky; just a space the size of the moon. Less than 1% of the sky.
Money and words exchange hands in an upbeat economy and global peace that has permeated since the end of the holy war, which came abruptly to an end by an event of universal profoundness in 2021. Logic and love took over the Earth, and people found themselves more understanding of their fellow humans. With this came a sensibility that pushed business to unseen levels, as technology increased at rates termed 'star-speed'.
*~December, 2029~*
And so, after ample payments and discussion, there was to be, at night time only to start... a billboard in the sky. Lighting up only once every 2 hours, and for only a short period of 10 minutes, the first person to purchase the space billboard time was Bill Gate's son, who had continued to turn his father's fortune into an empire that could easily own the world. His choice for this first billboard in the sky was direct:
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2030
MICROSOFT.COM
And this story will be the events that follow the monumental event, from the eyes and minds of...
a 46 year old man, a drifter and angry man, who works for a day's pay at fishing docks unloading boats. Upon the night of the first billboard in the sky, he is offered decent money to help on a fishing boat for one week and although he'd never been out to sea, he goes. The boat is picked up by a squall and sunk, two days after they are out to sea off the Florida coast. He is stranded on a deserted island after swimming with his last ounce of energy, with the billboard in the sky at night his only reminder of the life he once lived and the technology and material world he so hated.
A 23 year old convenience store worker and a regular customer who is about to turn 100 years old. In her eyes, the billboard in the sky is fantastic, and represents how forward the world is going, the progress and promise that the most amazing things can be thought of and made to be real. Her favorite customer is a man who has seen so many changes from his birth in 1930, and with the year 2030 here and his birthday in late August, the convenience store worker writes a letter pleading with Space Marketing to put one ten minute slot up stating HAPPY 100th BIRTHDAY, BILL on August 24th, on the billboard in the sky. She doesn't have the two million to buy the time from the company, but she hopes the company will view it as a nice thing to do and perhaps they will do it once a month for some lucky contest winner or something to that effect.
A 31 year old male computer hacker, in California, who had been responsible for some of the most memorable website hackings the last decade had seen. He'd never been caught, thus far, and while hacking into Space Marketing's website, he obtains access into their email accounts and reads the female convenience store worker's email about Bill's 100th birthday. He decides that his next hack will be to give the convenience store worker, and Bill, the birthday greeting, as he knows from memos he reads that the company will not be doing the centurian birthday greeting idea, although they do consider it for loosening the stigma placed on the billboards in the sky by many grassroots efforts to abolish it.
Will the bum on the deserted island go mad from the billboard in the sky, or will he figure out a way to stay alive and get home? Will Bill get his 100th birthday greeting on the billboard in the sky? Will the hacker succeed, once again, and not get caught? Will love bloom between the hacker and the girl from the convenience store, as he reads her online blog, falling in love with her, and emails her that he intends to see to it she gets her requested birthday greeting for Bill, the one hundred year old man?
What does Bill think of all this? Can a man born in 1930 feel a part of 2030?
February, 2030
He walked into the store, the wind picking at the door behind him, holding it open as a small gust of snow flew in and fell upon the damp store mat.
"Brr, that wind is a bitch today!" he said to Elizabeth, the young woman behind the counter. She nodded her head in agreement as her eyes continued to watch two teenagers in the candy isle, filling their pockets and sleeves with candy bars.
The door opened again and a woman not dressed warm enough for the weather came in with red cheeks and a button down shirt that revealed an even redder upper chest area. Her high heeled shoes had dampened nylons that clung in wrinkles at the edge, some of the wrinkles falling over. "When does this end?" she exclaimed as she headed for the dairy section. Elizabeth listened as the man, who was in the newspaper section walked towards her with a stack of every newspaper the store sold, and yelled to the woman in the dairy section "It will end sometime in March, April, or May. New England weathah, ya know," and slammed his newspapers down on the counter.
He leaned forward to Elizabeth, as if about to tell her a secret, and said "In fifteen more minutes, Gates has his glow in the sky, do you still watch it each time?"
Elizabeth smiled, "I used to go outside each time, but with the snow, I stay inside so my feet stay dry."
"Gates owned January, now he owns the skies of February, too," The man said, and it was hard to detect if he was speaking in awe of Mr. Gates, or if he was speaking with a bit of anger towards the man who had his ad for Microsoft emblazed between the stars and moon.
The woman from the dairy section walked over as Elizabeth was bagging the newspapers, to keep the ink safe from the wet of the snow.
"What do you think of that glow in the sky that's coming in a few minutes?" The man with the newspapers asked the woman from the dairy section, as she held a half gallon of milk in one hand and a carton of a dozen eggs in the other.
"I think it's awful, for anyone to think they have a right to obscure the natural beauty of the sky."
"Didn't you ever watch the Jetsons, back when you were a kid? They had that show in syndication on one of the kid's cable stations all while I was growing up. Remember we were all for space travel, even if it meant putting stop-signs and billboards in the galaxy skies?" the man said as he held his two plastic bags of newspapers.
"I never watched the Jetsons," the woman from the dairy section answered. "And I'd never approve of putting anything up in the sky."
"Not even airplanes?" The man asked, and then chuckled to himself. "The airplanes are up there blinking through the night sky a lot more than ten minutes out of every two hours, where's the problem?"
Elizabeth watched the two boys from the candy section head for the door, with two customers at the counter, they probably thought sure it was the right time to try. "Boys, you want to stop right there and pay for the candy in your jackets before you leave, please?" Elizabeth asked in a polite but firm manner.
"I don't have anything in my jacket," one of them offered up as a blatant lie.
"See the cameras? Everything is taped and also viewed from the main office," Elizabeth said and pointed up.
The boys got in line behind the woman from the dairy, placing most of their hidden goods on the display for Marlboro Cigarettes, while deciding which candy bars they could afford to purchase. Change jingled in their hands, like echos of Christmas bells. Elizabeth gave the boys a wink. "Got to be fair, boys, can't go around stealing, it's not the way the world works."
"We almost got them for free, though," the other boy spoke up.
"At my expense," Elizabeth said flatly.
"They aren't your candy bars," said the boy.
"When I'm at work they are," Elizabeth replied.
"That will be five dollars," Elizabeth said to the woman from the dairy section.
The woman handed her a ten dollar bill. "I can't believe that man with the newspapers. I bet if he had his way, there'd be nothing but billboards covering the entire sky."
"Out of ten, five is your change," Elizabeth said and added "I think he was just trying to explain how we want to have progress in things, but sometimes progress means change, and change is probably a little frightening to some folks sometimes."
"I'm not afraid of change. I've dealt with changes my entire life," the woman said defensively as she headed back out the door, the wind sweeping inside her shirt and the snow falling on her face with casual disregard.
The boys placed their four candy bars on the counter and laughed. "That chick can't even deal with snow," said the boy on the left, as he laid out a pile of nickles, pennies and dimes.
Elizabeth saw the bag of eggs fly up as the woman outside slipped and fell as she headed to her car. "Be right back, boys, behave," Elizabeth said loudly, as she ran to assist the woman in the parking lot.
"We should just sneak out with these now," The boy on the right said to his friend.
The boy on the left pointed up at the security camera.
Ed looked up and saw it, in the high left of the horizon.
MICROSOFT.COM
The February weather had been warmer than he'd expected, and not as wet as he'd expected. The small bamboo grass hut he'd built himself in the island's palm tree forest was enough to keep some small piece of civility to his existence, and he wondered why he'd even built it. Having spent many nights sleeping on park benches for the past ten years, he wasn't sure why building the hut had become such an obsession to him once on the island. If he didn't require shelter on the mainland, why did he feel it was so important while alone on the island? Was he really trying to protect himself from inclement weather, or was he trying to build something to give himself a sense of place? He just wasn't sure, and he stared at MICROSOFT.COM for the entire ten minutes it was lit as he thought about 'what next.' When the words faded out, leaving nothing but the stars, he ignored the pang in his head and in his heart and walked towards his hut.
Mitch rubbed his eyes with fists as he waited for the scan disc to complete. The four computers he had in his one room studio apartment were in need of a good dusting, so he went to the file cabinet to pull out the cloth. As his hand swept over each box and monitor, the gentle hum and sporadic clickings of the engines that sparked his life gave to him a sense of peace and power.
Along the large floor to ceiling windows, his pot plants grew, now standing at four feet, easily. He went over to water them, carefully noting the temperature gage he had stuck in each bucket of soil. He had found that so many factors made a difference in the potency, temperature being his main focus this year. A green covered notebook had all his written notations of his various findings in water, temperature, lighting, and elements added or not added to each different batch of marajuana, the seeds for which he'd purchased from Walmart's online gardening section, as well as some basil and thyme, to bake into his breads.
A timer went off in the small kitchen area, and as Mitch checked the home-made bread he'd put into the oven only an hour earlier, he noticed a small mouse scurrying over the top of his mini-stove and oven. Breaking off a small piece of crust, he hand fed the rodent and smiled as the little creature took the bread crust into his tiny paws, placed it into his teeth, and ran to a small opening between the counters, disappearing from view.
As he sat back down at his computer area, Mitch watched as the sun set lower and lower and his eagerness to view Microsoft's sky ad was tugging at him like the pull of his young brother's hand at the park. Mitch fell into the memory as the words came back in far away whispers that came closer and closer.
"Mitch, Mitch, frisbee, frisbee," his young brother had exclaimed, his wheelchair going forward with the use of one hand as his other hand held on to and pulled Mitch by the arm.
"Ok, ok, Lars," Mitch laughed, as he took the frisbee out of his backpack, where a small lunch for the both of them sat in brown paper bags. He hated that his father had named his younger brother after Lars Ulrich of Metallica, after some computer debate over right to file sharing in the 1990s and early 2000s. His father, who didn't even like heavy metal music, and was more apt to listen to country music, had often spent hours debating the 'theft of music through file sharing'. Mitch disagreed with his father on this issue, and had begged his dad not to name his little brother Lars. Even though Mitch knew it wasn't a logical thought, he sometimes felt that Lars' condition was brought on by the name.
He had spent an entire week, back in his teen years, putting files of Metallica tunes which would cut off briefly mid-song to the sounds of loud flatulence, which he'd added himself, on every file sharing server he could find.
But he loved his brother Lars. No matter his name, and no matter his condition. Having spent most of his spare time helping his dad raise Lars, when their mother had left the family to marry a coworker she'd been having an affair with for years, Mitch was both an older brother and a mother to Lars. And he had no regrets about it, felt there was no sacrifice to any of this, just the common sense of dealing with each day, each situation, as it came in life. And his father, who remarried a few years later himself, was happier than he'd been with their mother, anyways. So, sometimes, Mitch surmised, change can truly be for the better. Disruption in life's day to day can change things for the better, too. And it was that line of thinking that had gotten him into hacking computer websites and entire businesses and all of society, worldwide, knew of his online nickname because of it. ObS0L33T had begun his quest to shake things up in his teen years and when his first hacking made headline news on CNN, he was instantly hooked.
As he was to home-made bread. Mitch cut a piece from the middle and pulled it apart into two small rectangles and began eating from the middle. Some would say he lived the life of a prisoner; bread, tap water, pot. The occasional pizza. The occasional banana. Never really leaving the small cell of his apartment, not even to watch movies, which could be ordered online in lens-form; just lean back, close your eyes, and enjoy the show, with a pair of headphones on, you fell into the movie as deeply as a dream. The solitude and confinement to such a small space would appear, to most, like a self-inflicted life sentence, alright.
But Mitch didn't feel that way about the simplicity of his living and the complexity of it, once online.
Spacemarketing.com's main authorization password was jackjack, and for all his access to the site, to the emails shared by those in charge, and those not in charge, Mitch could not figure out why. Nobody had any kids named Jack, or family member named Jack, so Mitch figured it had to be a private joke of some sort.
Although Mitch could easily change the authorization password and obtain solo access to the site, he hadn't yet. At this point, his main intent was to figure out how and where the words for the billboard ads were sent to the satelite sign. Since that night, on New Year's Eve, when Microsoft.com had it's first shining as a star in the heavens, Mitch had wanted to see his nickname up there, shining down upon the world with both a smirk, a wink, and a bit of pride. ObS0L33t He knew it had to be through some computer command, and he was determined to obtain the password to that part of the site, which was a different code altogether.
He also wanted to understand Space Marketing, from every level, before embarking on what could potentially be his masterpiece. Skimming through an inbox, he came across her email.
From :
"Elizabeth Miller"
To :
spacemarketing.com
Subject :
An idea to help shake off the bad press
Date :
Thu, 17 January 2030 19:19:24 +0000
Dear SpaceMarketing,
I first would like to say that this email is a positive one, and that I think it's great your company finally got permission to have your billboard on at night in the sky. I'm sure, from all the media attention, you get your share of hate emails, but this isn't one of those types of emails.
My name is Elizabeth Miller, and I have an idea that might help you to ward off some of the bad press. A friend of mine is turning 100 years old in August of this year. He's a wonderful man who has shared many stories about a time and place in this world I could not learn from history books in the same way, and with the details he has offered. Bill was born in 1930, and it would truly amaze him if on the night of his 100th birthday, August 24th, if the billboard in the sky said HAPPY 100th BIRTHDAY, BILL. For just one ten minute slot, the first time slot if possible, at 10 p.m., as Bill is usually asleep by midnight and gets up at the crack of dawn.
Bill is a regular customer at the store I work at as a cashier/clerk. I have to tell you that he is a man who has seen so many changes, and he also speaks in favor of the progress of technology, although he doesn't own a computer or anything like that. Most of my elderly customers at the store find the billboards in the sky hideous, but not Bill! He thinks it is fantastic!
I think if one ten minute time slot each month were given to this kind of celebration of our oldest citizens, those turning 100, it might help to show the humanistic side of your company and also lift a little of the stigma off. It will guarentee media coverage of a more positive nature, and could really make a difference in how some people are viewing the billboards in the sky.
I hope you will at least consider this idea, and let me know if you can give to Bill the gift he'd never expect to get from me (and from you!)
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Miller
23 Shiftlock Drive
Apt. 2
MetroWest, MA. 02223-2121-56
phone-watch #: 727.311.1229
***
Mitch wasn't sure if it was Elizabeth's use of the word 'shake off' in her topic of the email, or the email itself, but he immediately felt a strong connection to her. Using a search engine, he found information on her and began reading her online blog.
One particular entry changed the entire focus of his hacking of Space Marketing and their ad box in the sky.
Bill once told me about going to a library back in the early 2000s, and someone at a computer cubicle was showing everyone a hacked website. He explained to me what happened on 9/11 and why the person had hacked the website, and he said he thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. I said "But, Bill, hacking is like stealing, isn't it?" and he said "No, because hacking is done with a sense of humor about it, and comedy is what makes life a happier and more laughable experience, Elizabeth. And the man at the computer cubicle explained to me, as clueless as I am about all this computer stuff, that hacking is an important aspect of the cyberspace, and he said that it actually improves things and makes people think harder, so, hey. I think change is good, you know that, and unexpected changes are sometimes just what this life needs."
My friend, who is almost 100 years old, defending hackers when he doesn't even own a computer!
I found an archive of the news story on the hacker, too:
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/11/17/sprj.irq.aljazeera.hacked.ap/index.html
He got in trouble for what he did, but he certainly shook things up!
Mitch tapped his pen on his nose and thought about Bill, almost one hundred years old. And Elizabeth. Perhaps it was just coincidence that Elizabeth and Bill understood the 'shake it up' theory he'd long fashioned his life on, but it felt like something more. As he surfed around other parts of the Space Marketing website, his mind soon changed the vision of ObS0L33t to HAPPY 100TH BIRTHDAY, BILL and he knew, once he saw it in his mind's eye, that it would become a reality.
From a deep sleep, Ed awoke and could have sworn he heard a switch being flicked up to turn something on. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the light... the moon? As the sleep drifted from his eyes, into focus came the midnight shine of MICROSOFT.COM, and the moon was hidden behind a large cloud about a hand's length away. The cloud drifted towards the billboard in the sky, like a fluffy overused school chalkboard eraser. Ed crawled out of his hut to watch.
He heard the switch flicking sound again, and realized it was the sound of underbrush cracking under the feet of a rodent. He couldn't be sure what kind, as no other noise came but the footsteps, marked by twisted twigs and bamboo snaps. As Ed walked to the shore of the island, he wondered what rat meat would taste like if cooked on an open fire. So far he'd survived off the protein of bugs and he'd eaten them raw. A few clams, a few snails, and the rain had been minimal, but he'd collected enough to keep himself content between the coconut drinks and the seaweed soup, with bugs thrown in for content.
The warm sand fondled his feet as he walked closer and closer to the water's edge, as the cloud moved closer and closer to MICROSOFT.COM
It really was a big sky, Ed mused. If he turned to his right, the light of the ad wasn't even visible, and the stars were unobstructed. If he turned to his left, the same. It was only if he stood this particular way that he was subjected to the letters, the words, the advertisement.
The cloud's edge touched the last letter, the M, and Ed felt both merry and then, almost instantly, very concerned. The cloud pushed against the O, eating it whole. Ed's heart raced, and he didn't feel the water on his feet as he stepped forward into the ocean, closer to the sky. The C was just about to lose its top curve when the cloud, for no reason at all, sunk down and floated south, leaving the rest of the letters untouched. The OM reappeared, as well as the dangling half moon of the C, and Ed was up to his neck in the ocean. Waves bumped over him in small folds, and Ed let his tears mix with the salt and sea.
A small porpoise or seal, he wasn't sure which, poked up in front of Ed. Stared at him. Then, turned to stare at the part of the sky Ed himself was looking. Together, they both watched as MICROSOFT.COM seemed to breifly go brighter, and then, out. The sea creature looked at Ed in what could only be described as a quizzical look, as if Ed could somehow explain what they had both seen. But Ed had no answers, and even if he did, he wouldn't know how to explain it with just his eyes, and the sea creature could only communicate with him, a human, in that way.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me," Ed said, out loud, to the face and eyes of the sea creature. The sea creature tilted its head, so Ed said it again.
"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but WORDS will never hurt ME."
Ed liked how his voice sounded, and was so warmed to hear a human voice, even his own.
"STICKS AND STONES MAY BREAK MY BONES BUT WORDS WILL NEVER HURT ME," he said, laughing and walking, almost dancing, back towards the shore. The sea creature remained where they both had watched the advertisement shut down.
Ed ran and then fell, splashing, swimming, to the shore. He reached to the bottom and pulled up some sand, some rocks, some leafy floaters and whipped it all into the air. As it hit the ocean, it sounded like applause at a baseball stadium.
"Who's on first?" Ed laughed, and turned to look at the sea creature, but it had already gone away, too.
His eyes darting around, in the hopes of seeing the eyes, the nose, the face of the sea creature that had shared a moment with him, but there was no proof it had even happened.
But he knew it had happened.
Ed brought his eyes up to the sky and tried to see the satelite image, the outline of the letters, but with no light, with no energy, with nothing being put into it, it could not be seen.
"Go back on," Ed demanded. "GO BACK ON. Now. Now! Turn it back on," Ed cried. And then Ed remembered how his mother used to battle with his dad about the nightlight in his bedroom.
"Night lights are for sissies, Ed!" His dad had yelled and ripped the Buzz Lightyear nightlight from the socket.
"Edward!" His mother had yelled at his father, "Eddy just needs a little light in case he has to use the bathroom at night."
"No son of mine is going to be a pussy and..."
"Edward!"
"Discussion over! No night lights!"
Ed imagined that Space Marketing probably felt the same way he had during the years of debate on the right to have an advertisement in the sky.
Ed awoke, two hours later, as a crab trying to climb up his head got tangled in his hair. Grabbing it and yanking off most of its claws, Ed looked up at the sky. Glancing at his wrist, which wore no watch, but still bore a light indentation of where one had been for almost a decade, Ed shook his head and then the legless crab and bits of sand fell to the shore. With claws in one hand and the main body in the other, Ed stood up and breathed in deeply through his nose, and sighed it out through his mouth.
"I missed the two o'clock show!" Ed mumbled and walked to where his fire hole was. Bits of red embers still remained from the previous day's bug roast. It wasn't even that the bugs tasted better cooked on open fire; they didn't. It was Ed's need for small changes, variety and his taste buds' boredom with the same bug and worm gig. Ed lifted a few pieces of drift wood and twigs he had in a pile nearby and got the flames going. His calloused fingers placed the crab on top of the driftwood, with the legs on top of the torso, one of which quickly rolled off and fell deep into the burning. He watched as the fire tapped with long reddish-orange flares the crab's oval shaped body. Tap, tap, tap. Tag, you're it. Tag, you're a late night snack.
Using two long sticks, Ed pulled the cooked crab off the fire and placed it on the sand to cool. Leaning back, his hands sinking into the softness of ocean-smoothed earth and boulders reduced to the size of pinheads, Ed wondered when and if anyone had even looked for any of the fishermen. Maybe it was just assumed they had all perished. Ed often was assumed to be dead. Old friends who hadn't seen him in years, bumping into him on the streets, or in bars, saying "I thought you were dead." and "Someone told me you killed yourself, I'm glad to see that's not true!" as a greeting.
He hadn't thought about the storm at all since the boat had been thrown around by waves bigger than two story houses. He hadn't thought of the sounds of the Captain yelling out orders and throwing survival gear around like candy being thrown from a float in a parade. He hadn't allowed himself to think about the way the Captain's face got smashed in by a barrel that broke loose from rope thinned and frayed by years of use. He'd not wanted to recall how the Captain kept talking, as if his left eye wasn't crushed deeply into the socket, as blood poured from the tear duct in spurts, and all of his top teeth shooting out of his mouth with every word spoken at high velocity. He wish he'd never have to hear again the sounds of a nearby fisherman drowning, once the boat was gone, Ed's ears under the water, breathing in gulps of air and ocean spray through his nose, listening to vanishing cries of "no, God, no," which spoken under water sounds more like "oh, go, oh."
And the vomit that rose moments later, circling Ed with the foul evil of strangulation by the sea.
And Ed was in the ocean's grip, thrown around and sucked under, slapped upside the face by mean smacks that seemed to come straight from God himself. So Ed had yelled "FUCK YOU, I'M SORRY." And God stopped hitting him, even though Ed was lying and wasn't sorry, and never would be sorry.
And the crab meat was good. It was sweet and full, and it came out in large pieces. Ed ate quietly and sleepily.
Elizabeth giggled as Bill juggled three packages of Hostess Twinkies.
"If you drop 'em, you buy 'em, Bill," she laughed and Bill put two of the packages back on the display-shelf and placed the other one on the counter.
"I once was a juggler on Main Street in Cape Cod, during the summer festivals, did I ever tell you that? This one felt the lightest. I bet it tastes the best, too," Bill said and put a two dollar bill on the counter. Elizabeth picked it up and rubbed her fingers over it gently.
"Bill, this two dollars is worth about eight dollars right now. Why use it for a dollar and fifty cents purchase?"
"Eight dollars?" Bill said. "Well, I've got quite a few of these at home, figured I'd put some back in circulation."
"You should take them to a dealer, or sell them on ebay. I can put them up for you on my account," Elizabeth offered.
"Nah, let's just put them back into the money train," Bill winked. "Let them have an adventure."
"They won't stay in circulation long, though, Bill. A few customers a day come in and purchase odd coins and two dollar bills. Seriously."
Bill undid the wrapping from the Twinkie and popped it halfway into his mouth and bit through. Chewing, thinking, smiling as his eyebrows went up and down, up and down. The warm coffee color of his skin and the light green of his eyes soothed Elizabeth, as did his wrinkles, his many, many wrinkles, that seemed to be proof of Bill's willingness to laugh more than they were proof of his age.
"Ah heck, just ring it through, I'll make a currency collector's day," Bill finally said and then popped the other half of the Twinkie in his mouth.
"Fifty cents is your change," Elizabeth said and went to her pocketbook to get two one dollar bills. "I'm buying the two dollar bill," She said matter of factly.
"You're a collector?" Bill asked.
"Only of Bill's bills," Elizabeth said and smiled.
Bill laughed and put the other Twinkie into his mouth. "Have you ever heard of a band named Foreigner?" Bill asked.
"No, are they new?" Elizabeth asked.
"No, they are old, very old, some of the members are dead, even. But, a long time ago, my son bought me a CD, and I didn't even have a player for it. But I kept it. It was a nice gift."
"So you never listened to it, Bill?"
"Nope," Bill said and took it out of his pocket. "But it can be played on computers, I heard."
Elizabeth picked it up and put it into the computer behind the counter and shut off the nearby radio. "Let's check it out," she said as the first song began to play.
Girl On The Moon, Foreigner
It's night, again
Time for my mind to go wandering
Off on a journey, through space and time
In search of a face I can never find
So I close my eyes and look inside
I can't forget
The night that I saw her we never met
She felt so close to me as I reached for her hand
She drifted away like the desert sand
It was her and she was gone
I wish she'd come back tonight
Like a star shining bright
I don't know where she's from
She's like a girl on the moon
A girl on the moon
She's like a girl on the moon
A girl on the moon
Yeah it's night, once again
And that same old feeling is setting in
It all seems so familiar but I hope this time
That the girl on the moon will soon be mine
All mine, tonight
Am I asking too much
Should I leave my dream untouched
Should I even know where she's from
My, girl on the moon
She's my girl on the moon
Girl on the moon
My girl on the moon
Girl on the moon
My girl on the moon
Girl on the moon
Girl on the moon
Girl on the moon
Fille sur la lune
Girl on the moon
Fille sur la lune
As the song finished playing, Bill and Elizabeth just stared at each other. "Well, that was weird," Elizabeth said.
"My son had strange taste in music," Bill said. "He was what they called 'stuck in the 80s', and listened to a lot of rock and roll music."
"That was rock and roll?" Elizabeth asked and then looked at the back of the insert from the CD cover. "They don't look rock and roll. That song sounded gentle, not like the rock and roll I've seen on Mtv, and I never saw those guys on Mtv, not even on the music history shows they have on sometimes."
"Heck if I know," Bill said. "He told me it was a rock and roll band."
"The cd is stuck. It's not going to the next song. How old is this cd?" Elizabeth asked.
"About 50 years old," Bill replied.
Elizabeth pressed the 'next' button and more music began to play.
"I see what might be the problem," Elizabeth said, as the song Break It Up began to play. "The computer media player is on shuffle, maybe that's why it keeps stopping after each track, with it being an older cd format and all. I could take off shuffle and maybe...hey, this song is pretty good."
The keyboard sound intro got stronger and harder and then the first words, Made myself a prisoner, I locked myself away, seemed oddly out of place to hear in a convenience store full of bright lighting and various colors and shiny packaging. "He sounds very upset," Elizabeth said, and pressed 'copy to drive' on her media player and selected the song playing without hearing all of it.
"Breaking up is hard to do, doo doo dee dee," Bill said as he tapped his hands to the beat of the bass sound in the song coming from the computer speakers.
Why can't you wait one more minute?
Why can't you wait? give me one more day
Let's get it straight
This is a big mistake
We better think about it
Bill watched as a customer walked inside the store wearing a long black jacket. Elizabeth smiled and said hello, her usual greeting, as the customer made his way past the two of them towards the newspaper section.
And I ask myself, what's wrong with me? How could I be so blind? I know she tried to give me everything, but I still couldn't see. Now as I watch our love slip away, I'm begging you, begging you, please...
One dollar outta ten," Elizabeth said as the customer read the front page of his purchase. "Nine is your change."
"Hey, it looks like some other company is buying that space in the sky for April," the customer said to Bill, and showed Bill the left hand bottom corner of the paper.
"Which company? What will it say?" Elizabeth asked as the men skimmed the short blurb.
"What company is that? I've never heard of them, what do they sell?" Bill inquired to both the man with the newspaper and Elizabeth.
The man held the newspaper up to his chest with his finger under the name of the company, as Elizabeth read it and cocked her eyebrow.
"GoatSeed.com?" Elizabeth said out loud. "Sounds like that goatse.cx site that has that gross picture on it," Elizabeth shivered.
"Maybe it's a cloning company," Offered Bill.
"Or an herbal medicine site?" the man with the newspaper suggested.
"Let's find out," Elizabeth said, and clicked on the computer block, typed in the website address and as Foreigner's next track began to play, Elizabeth, Bill and the man with the newspaper all gasped in disbelief as the site came into view. The Foreigner track, I'm Gonna Win, seemed both appropriate and eerily disconcerting.
Another dark night, in the city
And my prospects lookin' thin
The survival, of the fittest
Is the law, in the world that I live in
"Oh my, well, I wasn't expecting that exactly," Elizabeth whispered.
"Neither was I," said Bill.
The man with the newspaper started laughing and walked out the door.
I'm gonna win
Somehow I know I'm gonna win
You know
I've got to fight to stay alive
Kick it in to overdrive
I'm gonna win, ooh, ooh, ooh
I'm gonna win
The bamboo bowl was moldy and the edible leaves inside of it looked dry, dirty and crisp. Like potato chips, Ed put them into his mouth and ignored the stale taste and faint mildew odor that came out of his nose with each swallow.
He remembered the day his father sat him in front of the computer, demanding he fill out the job search form. "Use the tab button to go to each new section, it will make it easier."
Ed tapped in his name. Ed tapped in his address. Ed tapped in his education level. Ed wondered how his father even knew you could fill out job search forms online when all he'd ever seen his father use the computer for, late at night, was porn. Ed tapped in his previous jobs, newspaper delivery, library archiver, office janitor. Ed tapped in his references. Ed thought about his father watching the gay porn. The gay porn in a folder titled 'Deleted Files', even though his mother never touched the computer.
Ed tapped in his desired starting pay. $4 million dollars per hour. Ed started laughing and couldn't stop. It wasn't a happy laugh, it was the laughter of a twenty year old man about to snap. His father heard him and walked by the computer desk and smacked Ed upside the head. And that's when Ed picked up the computer chair and beat his father with it until his father pulled the chair from him. No words were exchanged. Ed just left, as his father looked on with a bloody nose and ripped up defense wounds on his hands by his sides that blood didn't even flow from yet.
A bag of potato chips in his lap, Ed sat across the street from the small plaza and contemplated the irony of the four connected establishments. The salt and vinegar chips zinged his tongue as he read the signs above the doors, from left to right:
XXX Mike's Porn Shop XXX, Travel Brasil, Jannee's Nail Salon, Faith Assemblies of God Church
Eating the last remnants of the potato chips, Ed stood up and brushed his jacket and pants off. Heading back into the convenience store, Ed walked to the back to wash his hands in the men's room. Checking his hair and wiping his face with a large pile of paper towels, Ed wondered if he should start right to left, or left to right.
As he stood once again in front of the plaza across the street, he tapped his jacket pocket to make sure his pens were still there. Filling out job applications by hand was the only way to go, and Ed had never quite respected the technology he grew up with and hated. Absolutely hated. He had no trust for it, as most of the advances in it had only brought his world more darkness. More solitude. More emptiness and nothing. But, to feel his hands write on paper, to look at the face of the person you want to work for, to sign the back of the check, even if you were the only one in the business not to have direct deposit... these were things that connected Ed to the world. Even though his stubborness may have outwardly appeared to be a conscious move to keep himself outside of the pack, Ed was trying to feel a part of life. To feel anything, anything real, anything human, in a world that seemed to him to want everything but touch. And each time Ed reached out, when someone gave him a computer pen to fill out a form on a monitor in a secluded cubicle, Ed would request a paper format application and take out one of his ink pens. And the reaction always made him feel he was helping to keep things real.
Ed started at the right. One should always start with God, Ed thought. Even if they end up, eventually, at a porn shop.
Faith Assemblies of God had a door that was painted the colors of the rainbow, from top to bottom; purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red. As Ed pushed the door open, a small chain of jingle bells announced his arrival. Ed looked up at the small band of metal chimers attached to the door's metal bar. The silver coating sparkled.
The smell of microwaved popcorn and spring water filled Ed's nose, and Ed wondered how water could have such a strong odor of clean. He'd never actually smelled water before this moment, had never thought it possible or even wondered about it.
The young woman behind an old, small school style desk looked up at him and nodded her head both in hello and an eager look of 'may I help you to find God?'. It was obvious Ed was not at one with God. It was in his eyes, a look of banished hope with only remnants of faith in mankind, God's creation.
"Are you hiring for anything here?" Ed asked bluntly.
"No, we are run by volunteers, and could always use help, if you can even just give an hour a week, it helps," the young woman said and handed Ed a volunteer application form. It felt nice to be handed a piece of paper, for a change, rather than be directed to a computer monitor.
"I need a job," Ed said and then added as he handed her back the application, "thank you, though, for everything."
The woman looked at him quizzically, and seemed about to say something as the rainbow door opened and closed with a gentle ding-ding-ding-ding as Ed left.
The glass-windowed door of Jannee's Nail Salon had four small stickers on it. One of them said "We accept all major credit cards". Two of them had NO SMOKING alerts on them. The other had the hours the store was opened and closed. Ed opened the door to the strong scent of nailpolish remover, acrylic, and perfume.
A woman having her nails done looked over at Ed and eyed him up and down. Her hair looked shiny and she wore no makeup, and her face was gentle and serene, like the angel's face on the poster on the wall of the Faith Assemblies of God office. Her nails were being painted pink.
The woman painting her nails had on a tight black unitard and thigh high leather boots. Her black hair was long, very long. And very dark. So dark, for a minute Ed got lost in the color of it. Then, he began to feel dizzy. The strong chemicals were playing with his mind, and he held onto the door knob for balance.
There was no way he could work under these conditions.
"Jesus fucking christ," Ed whispered and walked back out, the sound of female giggling trailing out before the door fully shut.
"No speak Portuguese?" the man behind the counter of Travel Brasil asked Ed after Ed asked for a job application.
"Nope," Ed replied, and looked at the large color photos of vacation spots he wished he could afford one day. "But I can learn quickly, if that will help me get the job."
"No hiring, sorry," The man said.
"I can learn the language in a week," Ed said and looked at the small computer cubicle to his right. The monitor had a worn pen cord dangling from it, and the screen blinked a few times, like it was about to give up.
"No hiring, sorry," The man said again, and Ed wondered if the man even understood what he was saying.
"Can I at least fill out an application? I see the form right there on the computer screen, I can just fill it out in case you change your mind," Ed asked and pointed at the computer just as it blinked one last time and then shut off, or possibly died.
"Not hiring, sorry," the man said a final time.
Ed stood in front of Mike's Porn Shop and read the warnings.
MUST BE SIXTEEN OR OLDER TO ENTER. NO EXCEPTIONS.
MUST HAVE VALID PHOTO ID AND USA CARD WITH MATCHING DATA.
NO SMOKING, NO CHEWING, NO BITING, NO FIGHTING
NO HIDDEN HANDS
NO PROBLEMS
Ed tried to see inside the store, but the entire glass fronting was covered in posters and signs announcing SALE! and XXX PORN XXX and WE HAVE BUNNY LOWE'S DVDS!
The small cement area in front of the door had a large wooden block with an ashtray on it filled with half-smoked cigars and hand rolled cigarette butts scattered in the sand that seemed to act as a weight to keep the ashtray from blowing over. Ed picked up one of the half smoked cigars and smelled the tip of it, which had a clove and cow manure smell to it, and just as Ed went to toss it back into the ashtray, the porn shop door burst open.
"ARE YOU SOME KIND OF BUM?" a man dressed in black jeans and a tight white leather shirt boomed into Ed's face.
"No," Ed replied calmly.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING GOING THROUGH THE DAMN ASHTRAY THEN? YOU'VE BEEN STANDING OUT HERE FOR FIVE MINUTES, ARE YOU HERE TO CAUSE THIS?" man said and pointed to the word PROBLEMS on the window sign.
"No. I'm here in search of a job," Ed said and the man's eyes widened and his right eyebrow went up.
"Oh, are you now?" the man said to Ed and then opened the door very wide. "Well, come on in and let's see what you have to offer." Ed noticed the man was carrying a small baton in his hand. It looked to be very old, the tassles on it were worn and frayed. As Ed walked into the shop, the man held the door for him, and then gently tapped Ed on the right buttock with the baton.
"Did you just hit me with that?" Ed asked.
"WHOOPS, SORRY!" the man exclaimed and then said in a very low voice, "My name is Mike. Most just call me Harris. You can call me Mike, for now. What brings you here for a job, what are your references and are you willing to start at fifteen dollars an hour, under the table, working the register and helping me reorganize the toy section?"
"Toy section?" Ed asked and then looked around. He'd been keeping his eyes on Mike until that moment, not trusting the baton incident to be the mistake and whoops that Mike insinuated.
"I just got in a powerfully large order of new sex toys but just haven't had time to redo the entire back room yet. Staffing has been minimal, and the place has been busier lately, most of the hours are spent on the register. Oh, hold on a minute, be right back," Mike said and rushed over to the counter as a man holding 4 dvd's tapped them impatiently.
"There's just no time to dedicate to a total overhaul and redesigning to fit the new items in, some of them are lifesize!" Mike yelled to Ed and then thanked the customer for coming and to please drop by again.
Ed sat on the couch near the door and suddenly felt something move underneath him. "What the hell..." he said quietly and then saw the head of a large python snake near his hand, the rest of the body hidden under the cushions and pillows.
"THAT'S JUST MY SNAKE! HIS NAME IS PARADE!" Mike yelled and rang up another customer. "DON'T WORRY, HE WON'T HURT YOU!"
But Ed never heard what Mike said. Not even the word "THAT'S". Ed had fainted from fear.
Elizabeth finished stocking the last carton of smokes and rolling papers, leaving just an hour left to her shift. The hydro-clock needed water, so she went over to the sink near the coffee counter and filled a small paper cup half way to the top.
Bill walked in the store carrying a large yellow envelope. "I brought something to show you, Elizabeth," he said and put it on the counter. "You'll find this interesting, I bet."
Elizabeth came around the counter and tapped the manilla envelope with her fingertips. "I bet I will, what is it? Pictures?"
"Yep, how'd you guess?" Bill said and headed for the snack isle.
After filling the clock, Elizabeth wiped her hands with a sterile-cloth and then opened the manilla folder. The beach scene was black and white, with kids at the shore and some boats in the distance. The photograph looked very, very old and was laminated to protect it.
"Is this you?" Elizabeth inquired about a small boy pointing up to the sky.
"Yep, that's me. I was eight years old. My mother handmade me those bathing trunks and shirt. Can you see what I'm pointing at?"
Elizabeth looked closer at the picture.
"A seagull?" she asked.
"Look closer. Think of the billboards in the sky."
Elizabeth wondered how she'd not seen it. There, in the sky, above the boats, a plane and some lettering.
"Oh my, what does that say? Slyboy?"
Bill came back carrying two SkyBar candybars. He put them down on the counter and smiled. "Skybar," he said.
"Skybar candy bars?"
"Yes, please, two of them, I want you to taste a piece of history."
"I've never tried them, and I've tried most of the things in this store," Elizabeth said and rung in the order. Bill handed her one and unwrapped the other one. He snapped off the first square and popped it into his mouth. Elizabeth opened her's and put a piece in her mouth. "Mmm, this is good," Elizabeth said with a chocolately smile.
"When I was eight years old, SkyBar had an airplane do some skywriting to advertise their candy bar. The Necco company's creative way to get the word out about the newest candy bar worked... we ate them all summer, and we'd all go to the beach to see the words in the sky. It reminded me of this whole billboard in the sky thing going on, and the controversy surrounding it. When I saw the photograph the other day, I just remembered so much about the excitement about the candybar. The excitement of seeing the letters in the sky. Boy, we thought they were the cat's meow to do that. We'd watch as the lettering spread and warped, disappearing into the air, drifting on the wind."
"Like the billboard in the sky going on and then off," Elizabeth said as she popped a second square of chocolate into her mouth.
"Yep," Bill said.
"It's pretty amazing to me how far the skywriting has come," Bill said, and folded the chocolate bar wrapping over the three remaining squares and put it in his pocket.
"Yeh, it amazes me, too," Elizabeth said, and looked out the large window in the front of the store. "Hey, it's just about to go on, too," Elizabeth said, as she glanced at the hydro-clock.
They both walked outside into the chilly night air and stood at the side of the building together. GOATSEED.COM beamed from far away in the galaxy.
"Is it me, or does that just look so much brighter or bolder font than the Microsoft one?" Elizabeth asked Bill, her warm breath showing in the freezing temperatures in cloudy balls of moisture.
"I think it's just the cold night air making it clearer, or maybe they did make the font thicker, I'm just not sure. Maybe it's because it's an unfamiliar word to us that makes it seem to stand out more up there in the sky," Bill offered up as reason.
"It's amazing," Elizabeth sighed.
"It sure is," said Bill. "From SkyBar in the daylight to Goatseed dot com in the night sky. How far we have come."
"I think the night sky is so appropriate for goatseed dot com," Elizabeth said, and they both laughed softly.
Elizabeth thought privately about the goatseed.com website image they had all viewed the month before, as the taste of chocolate in her mouth made her thirsty for a coffee.
Mitch watched as the cursor moved on his monitor, the hand behind the screen, navigating the site, belonging to an unknown employee of the billboard in the sky. For fifty minutes, Mitch had been watching, waiting for any details on the sky ad change from GOATSEED.COM to the May installment of BMW.COM, steadily keeping notes on a small pad of paper with no lines.
As the screen went to a logon page, Mitch knew, this was it. Noting all changes, all security codes and passwords, Mitch held his left hand to his lips and nose, his fingers still smelling of basil-garlic bread. After ten minutes of implemented changes, all of which Mitch put to memory as well as in pen to paper with his right hand, the person logged off, and Mitch shut down the monitor for a moment to sit quietly so that his heart and mind could slow down. Staring at his own reflection on the blackness of the screen, Mitch noticed his eyes, a light blue, seemed almost to shine gray-white back at him, and a smile of success, uncocky and patient, eager and deserved, gave his face the look of an Olympic winner. His dark brown hair curled at his neck and shoulders, and his shirtless upper torso looked firm and proud. "I need a haircut..." he mused. Tilting his head to the right, Mitch thought about her, as he looked at himself and tried to see himself through her eyes. Would she find him attractive? Would their eyes ever meet? Her last update to her blog had been funny and warm, although her fish named Bubble had died, her thoughts on the life and death of a fish were filled with goofy poems, pictures and a makeshift fish-obituary. Mitch liked how she handled such a sad event. It reminded him of his father, of himself. Of Lars, who had more strength as a handicapped human than most fully functional adults. Elizabeth had long fingers, holding her fish Bubble in the palm of one hand, taking a digital photo with the other. She had small breasts, fairly visible through her work t-shirt, about the size of small apples, in the picture of her in front of the store she worked at, waving to the lens of a wallet phone camera. Delicate and almost elf-like in her face, her nose so tiny it almost wasn't there. Her smile big, almost goofy, and sincere. Her eyebrows lifted high, as if she were surprised. Mitch had saved the picture to his Elizabeth folder. He clicked back on his screen and brought the photo up again, to look at her for a while, his own reflection behind her, almost a part of her.
He could feel her heart beating inside him, somehow, in the way cyberspace could reach him from the east coast to the west coast. In the mysterious way her picture, her words, her life opened to him with refreshes and updates/new, a life he had followed and grown to feel a part of. Although she did not know of him, other than perhaps news stories on his hacking from years gone by, and then only by computer space nickname, he knew her. He wondered about her. He wanted her to know him, but wasn't sure alerting her to Bill's planned birthday greeting in the sky would be a smart way to do it. He wanted to let her know, share his excitement over the accomplishment of obtaining full knowledge of how to do it, and his determination to see it through, for her... but he knew that for now it must all remain a solo joy, a solo sense of glory. A private plan. But somehow he would have to let her be aware that she would get her wish, without the company's blessing, although she didn't have to know that aspect, to celebrate Bill's 100th birthday with words lit up against a night sky.
He clicked onto her site and immediately noticed a new blog entry.
Expert! That's what I am now. An Expert at something. Ok, so it's only cribbage, a very old game that I learned how to play online. It's a card game where you move along a board to get to the finish line, like a race. You peg spaces by getting denominations of 15, and runs of cards, like 4,5,6 and such. It took me a long time to learn the game and not get confused, but after a year, I finally got my gold icon. I'm working hard to keep it, but it's also a game of luck, and some days I am not very lucky with the draw.
I play on pogo.com, a site that has been around for decades, and some of the players were around when the site first started! They are very helpful with teaching newbies. The site has a setup where you can also learn how to play with a computer, if learning with another person doesn't pan out (I had to learn mostly with the computer player, but also got help from some old regulars who are really good at the game.)
Stop by and play me a game if you want, blog readers! I'm on in the morning, usually when I wake up around 8:00 a.m. and my nick on the site is BethEliz. I hope I'm still an expert if any of you do come to play! If I'm not, try not to tease me too much about it, haha. :)
Mitch clicked the link to pogo's game site.
He glanced at the time on his tool bar, and added 3 hours. On the east coast, it was nearly noon time. Four hours past her usual game time mentioned in her blog, but he registered a name to use on the site anyways. Clicking around, he added BethEliz to his friends list, and saw she was currently in a silver play room. His heart paused, and then beat hard.
Her nickname was sitting alone, waiting for a game, but her rating selection was too high for him to join. Luckily, Mitch knew how to play cribbage, and x'ed out to visit a newbie lounge to get his rating up as fast as he could.
It took him three days, in between computer freelance work and losing streaks that made him feel like a sneaker in a clothes dryer, bumping his rating around. He had noticed Elizabeth only played silver-rated and higher, so once he got to silver, he set his alarm ear-clock to 5:00 a.m. for the following morning.
The sky was dark purple with only a light blue and pink edge at the horizon, smog obscuring the clouds into smudgeprints. A soft 'click' steadily increased in pace and volume in Mitch's right ear, and he took the small foam clipping from his earlobe and squeezed it twice to shut the alarm off. He sat on the edge of his bed and did a few leg raises to get the blood going. Leaning back on his arms, he looked at the ceiling for a moment and hoped Elizabeth getting to know him would go as smooth as getting to know her had gone so far.
Two pieces of fresh cut bread, toasted, with a light coating of strawberry jam filled the computer area with the smell of warmth and a sense of morning. As Mitch entered the pogo site, he saw that Elizabeth was now in a gold room, and he hoped she had not changed her rating selection as he pressed the link.
She hadn't. But she was in a game, and he sat waiting in the lounge awaiting her next game. He went to another window to finish up a design for some wrapping-paper company in the midwest he'd been doing some freelance work for. Mainly business-use wrapping paper for online items shipped offline, for birthdays and anniversaries and the like. Personalized wrap had become popular with online orders, and Mitch enjoyed designing each sheet to fit each customer's requests. It was his favorite freelance work, and although the pay was somewhat low, it was worth it when some of his design ideas and conceptions became top sellers in the company. One piece had even won an award, when he took an anniversary gift wrap and converted a photo of the married couple into text using their self-written vows and varying the light/darkness in the lettering to create the image of the couple. He'd never thought of himself as an artist of any sort, but had garnered a reputation as one none the less.
As he sent the design to the company, which only took about ten minutes to complete, BethLiz became available for a game. Mitch pressed the 'sit' link. Instantly, he was now alone with her and could barely breath. Her web-view was on and she said "Good morning, and good luck to us both!"
Mitch stared at her face in the tiny box, top right, and considered if he should click his webview on so she could see him. It was considered web-courteousy to webview if someone had their webview on. His eyes focussed behind the monitor glass slightly and he looked at himself and wondered if his appearance was frightening or just very human. "Yes, good luck to us both," he said after he clicked the webvoice button. Running his fingers through his hair, he clicked the webview button. "I just got up, so I hope you don't mind if I'm not exactly webviewable at the moment."
"Not at all. I've just gotten so use to having mine on, I never changed the option," Elizabeth said as she put two cards into her crib. Mitch selected two cards to toss into her crib as well, and the game began.
Mike stood over Ed, gently slapping Ed's cheeks with one hand, holding Ed's chin with the other. "Don't MAKE ME have to call and AMBULANCE!" Mike snarled.
Ed opened his eyes and stared at Mike in fuzzy recollection. Parade the snake lay around Mike's neck and front torso in a seductive manner.
"YOU'RE HIRED!" Mike yelled, and ran to the counter, grabbed the baton, twirled it rapidly between his fingers as Parade ducked its snake-head into Mike's underarm pit, and Mike ended his little show by bringing the baton to his foot and bowing. A customer looking at some porn magazines golf clapped.
Ed sat up on the couch and wiped his face with his hands. His dizzy brain and sporadic heartbeats were slowly becoming unfogged and calmer. He smelled shoe polish, alcohol, and plastic wrapping in abundance. It was as if his nose and sense of smell were brought to some higher level by fear. He sniffed again and could smell vanilla inscense, old cigars, new cigars, and he was pretty sure someone in the building recently had worn a pair of very filthy socks. He smelled a banana-nut muffin, cold coffee, and gasoline. And then he smelled the sweat above his lip.
"Come over here to the register, Ed, I want to show you how easy this system is to use. Are you familiar with scanners? This one can detect the barcode anywhere within a six inch radius, which is nice," Mike said and flagged Ed over with the baton, like summoning an airplane to safe landing.
"Can I use your bathroom for a minute, to put some cold water on my face, or something," Ed asked Mike, as he swayed uneasily.
"Sure thing, it's off of my office," Mike replied, and pointed his baton towards the back room.
Ed stumbled into the small bathroom, expecting filth, but as he closed the door behind him, the first thing he noticed was a light vanilla scent, along with flowery beads that nestled inside the toilet paper holder. Nothing scummy, neat and organized, unlike all he had expected, and causing him such alarm inside everything he ever thought or perceived.
Why, he thought, was he feeling like he was in a hand-drawn cartoon inside this porn shop? The snake, it didn't act like a snake, it acted like it had a mind, so animated and unreal. And Mike, so spotlight stage-show, was he somehow just a figment of imagination? Some twisted dream, perhaps his father had grabbed the chair from him and knocked him unconscious? Maybe this was a coma of some sort. Maybe, Ed thought, he wasn't really here, and all these connections he felt weren't even tangible, except in his mind?
But he felt the soft double-sheeted toilet paper in his hands, as he wiped himself ater taking a small poo. Standing at the sink, the light blue ceramic of it almost kissing his eyes, he wiped his face with his hands, and then water, and then a soft clean paper towel. He stared at himself, trying to find the problem. Something was different within his face, his eyes, but he couldn't see it right away. He looked at his cheeks, his palor, and then he saw it, in his lips.
He was smiling. Just softly, a smile, there it was, upon his face. The calm smile of a woman in the produce section of a grocery store as she sees the sale price on celery and lettuce. The soft smile of a little boy swinging on a tire swing on a summer's day. The smile shared by an old couple feeding ducks at lake-side.
A smile; Ed felt for sure this couldn't be happening, it had to be that he was in the hospital, dying of a chair-induced coma, but as he touched the smile on his lips with his fingertips, he knew it was indeed real, as were the events happening.
Of all places to feel life so real, so alive, so real it almost seemed not real, because of the happiness, because of the odd serenity of the penis and vagina, of the simplicity in the shape of a dildo or long leather whip, Ed wondered, why, why would it have to be a pornography shop that gave him a sense of belonging and connection to the world? He had no sexual longings, and any he'd had in the past he got angry at, and with himself, and would push them quickly inside a black metal box located above his stomach.
"Oh god," Ed said silently to the face in the mirror, "you can't work here. The box will open."
Life can sometimes be so real, it melts metal.
Ed looked at Mike's mouth and then his eyes. Standing in front of the register, almost as if he were a customer and not a job applicant, Ed just shook his head no and although he parted his lips to say he couldn't work there, Mike put his fingertips to Ed's face and said "It's okay, I understand."
And that ended the realest Ed had felt in his entire life. Standing on the very rim of reality, but feeling as if it were no more real than Part Two, Act Four in some Broadway play, Ed put both hands on the door of the pornography shop and as it gave way and opened, he let the gust of air that pushed from inside the store to the doorway float him back into the world he hated.