| dewy decimal |
2004-09-09 - 3:30 p.m.
You'll be going about your life as you always do. Maybe the sun is occupying the 11:30am slot in the sky and you look at the face of your watch, and sure enough, it's more or less 11:30.
Your neck might still ache just a little because yesterday you'd played too roughly with your lover after polishing a case of New Castles. That explains that.
Everything is corresponding to its effectual laws. And maybe you're settling your bones under a tangerine patio umbrella at your favorite caf�, taking bantam bites out of your savory garden burger when you'll notice the glitch.
Up till now you've had a reasonable kind of day, taking your cues from the hands on your watch, and operating under the laws of conduct which you have written yourself into, and while they may not be the laws that are acknowledged by certain judicial systems, they are ones that you have found to work spectacularly in the context of your occassional pot-toking, J-walking, 50 in a 35 zone type of lifestyle.
But as you sit, legs crossed, chipmunk-faced, rerunning fond sequences of the yesterday and/or hopeful plans for the future, your attention is suddenly snagged by the needy NOW who's avatar has just presented himself as a balding caucasian man in a stiff, navy Sears Roebuck suit and he's seated himself at your table, sweating profusely. A man with a body that is not so much built for walking as it is for rolling.
You ask him if you know him from somewhere, if it is possible that he has mistaken you for another patron that may bear some resemblence to your stature, your taste in head to toe Raf Simons. You haven't decided yet if you'll receive him as a Saint or Scrooge would. Maybe he hasn't offered enough cues yet for you to decide which one of yourselves you will assume at this juncture.
He might say something along the lines of I was sent here to bring you this, and, right after adjusting his blazer that had until now been asymmetrically bunched about his right shoulder, he produces an old camel-colored suit case with knicked gold latches. You might look to his face which is littered with stubble, searching for any clues hidden in the cadence of his blinking, the tilt of his mouth, anything like that. But you stop when the only sign he's revealling is that he's tired, beyond exhausted.
He tells you to open the suitcase and naturally you are wary. This suitcase, the portly man, the conversation does not correspond with your neck ache, with the 11:30 solar occupancy, so you ask him again what this is all about as you look around to see if anyone else is seeing what you're seeing. The chinese couple with the Holiday Mart bags are blissfully engrossed in their salads. The gaunt 60 something homosexual is scanning his menu with an involved posture, dedicating his queer eye. The two bookish girls behind you are telling Yo Mama jokes, and you panic at their self-contained laughter. It is an awful sound of independence.
The man sees that you are apprehensive and almost a little shook. "Name's Battlecat," he says to break the ice, and how funny, you might be thinking, that such a rotund, wart-hoggish man should possess such an agile name as Battlecat and no sooner had the thought formed itself then maybe the man yells out, "Eeeeeeeya" as he sends his right arm down toward the table in a chopping motion and it scares the berjeezus out of you. The tables around you look over, but to your dissatisfaction, do so only to give you an irritated eye. Maybe now you're ready to leave this man who has begun to sweat himself as a melting glacier would. "Open it!," he commands and since you are already panic stricken, confused and don't know what the hell to do, the command is almost inviting. You feel your fingers unfastening the mottled clasps, peeling the suitcase open at its sticky edges.
Inside there are three varieties of things; 1.) 5 bundles of bills. You are unable to estimate the amount, but by the hundred dollar faces and the chalkboard-eraser-sized thickness of the bundles, you can assess that it is definitely more than enough to make you want to stay just a little while longer.
2.) 3 faberg� eggs, mint condition. The smallest one has goldleaf designs painted on its aquamarine body. The medium sized egg is a pearly pink item with tiny jewels encrusted in the pattern of a flower. You think it might be a tulip. The largest one is painted in chinese pocelain style with a canary background and detailed paintings of blue lotuses, pink phoenix feathers, and golden sunbeams, rendered heavy with lead. All sitting on the golden legs at their bases, and you might wonder, how they hadn't toppled over when the suitcase was upright. Logic says to you in a bothersome voice that the current position of the three eggs demands the defiance of the laws of gravity.
3.) An old, victorian-styled, hand-held mirror. Ornate, gold and garish.
Then, in your cloud of confusion maybe you look to Battlecat and his face might be blank, you might not know how to read this face.
"Pick up the mirror," he says, and as you grab it in your trembling hand you can feel the irregular surface of its handle which is detailed with grooves and bumps that make up a leafy, vine laden texture. "I want you to look at yourself," demands Battlecat. As you raise the mirror to your field of vision you can see the worried look in your eyes. The searching and the blankness. You see the face that doesn't know what to do and behind you the two bookish girls are staring at you in amusement and behind them, a black boxy object that you cannot decipher, until you realize its a camera and Battlecat announces to you and 30 million viewers that you've been fucked with on their hidden camera show.
Suddenly everyone around you stands on their feet, facing you, clapping and wooing emphatically as you feel your sense of solar slots, timepieces, and lunch hours all fall from under you, the way you imagine light is sucked into a black hole, emitting trace amounts of radiation. There is a sound lodged in your esophagus, and you bury your face in your hands instead to hide the face of someone in total disbelief. A face you possess yet have never seen for yourself. Your face remains stuck in this ugly way for some time.
Then, Battlecat might waddle his way over to you and tell you his real name is Walter and you say to yourself, Walter, fucking Walter, this is so not unlike waking up from a deep sleep by some inconsiderate friend who has just called you at 4:30am to talk about nothing.