found_drama

There is a single hair growing out of the whites of my eye. It’s a short, thick, coarse black hair. Like a beard’s whisker two days after the razor. The hair is bothersome, irritating. Every blink is like passing a kidney stone, every sidelong glance a slash to the wrist. Fine pink lines radiate out from where the hair breaks pierces through the sclera. I lean in close to the mirror, get a good look at it. It’s an ugly thing—hideous and out of place and painful. So painful. I gather up some tweezers and slowly, delicately move them toward that short little stub of hair. It takes all of my willpower not to blink but I get the tips of the tweezers to pinch that very tip of the hair. I tug. Even the most gentle pull feels like it will yank the entire eyeball from its socket. But the hair itself is far more painful. I tug again, more forcefully this time. In the mirror, I can see the surface of the sclera cling to the hair. My vision blurs, distorts. The pain is unbearable. But then there is a soft slurping and popping sound and the hair rips free.

A race against the clock. A battle against a violent fiend. The villain is badly hurt. But his mutations have given him an uncanny strength. It is difficult to say if he is rejuvenating, but he is definitely growing. Taller. Thicker. Strong? He is visibly, viscerally deformed. Snarling. He pounds down steel doors. Smashes through concrete walls. Crushes. Destroys. But for his strength and rage, he is not thinking clearly.

There is still a chance to stop him, to terminate him. And as he has not checked in these changes, he will lose them forever.

If I can only make it to the terminal in time and overwrite those changes in the clone’s version control apparatus.

And indeed, I make it in time. There is both rage and lament in that bellowed yelp of his. He knows it is too late. But he comes after me anyway. If only to make me suffer alongside.

The Empire State Building is on fire. Engulfed in flames. Beautiful, symmetric, dancing, diaphanous Hollywood flames. Chemical flames. Tongues of flames. Flames that want to lick the inky night sky.

They fire fighters have all come out to fight the fire. Ladders. They are stacking ladders up the side of the building, consecutively up the same way that the ladders go down into a granite quarry. One ladder after another at a steep incline. It sways and wobbles. Every once in a while the chief decides that one of the men must be sacrificed. A lieutenant somewhere on the ladder will turn and sing a plaintive song to one of the other men until he become hypnotized and willingly leaps from the ladder.

Onward they push. Onward they stack the ladders until they reach the roof and the men start to spill over, rushing downward as if to smother the flames.

Somewhere in Central Park, a police officer shoots a pimp, and sets free two reluctant hookers.

Post-apocalyptic? Under a subterranean sky? Civilizations crumble; infrastructures crumble. You band together with whomever is left, with whomever you are close to when it all went down. Folks from work; the odds were in favor of it being them. Holed up somewhere, we all load up—stuff backpacks full of provisions: food, rope, matches, green metal bottles full of whatever water will still run out of the sputtering taps. I go back for a sword—a gleaming katana. My travel-mates poke fun at me (“What good will that do us?”) but I don’t see any of them going back for weapons. And why shouldn’t we carry at least one of these, at least something like this? There are bound to be more folks out there—some of them may even be marauding. Didn’t any of you read The Road?  So they press on ahead.  ”I’ll catch up.”  And it takes a while but I figure out a way to get the katana attached.  But it’s difficult to move with both the blade and the backpack over-stuffed with gear and food.  I run a rope out the window and rappel down the side, looking up at the stone sky, hoping that everyone is already safe at the bottom when I get there.

I’m at… work?  No, not work.  The floors are concrete but this is an Eastern Shore-style crab house.  Concrete floors and rows upon rows of long red picnic tables covered in newspaper.  But I may as well be at work.  I’m surrounded by co-workers, all of us toting our laptops.  We take our seats around the tables.  There is work to be done among the software engineers.  Except that before we can really get started, the project managers descend from out of nowhere, each one carrying huge trays laden with sashimi and rice and other treats.  Everyone dives in.

I.

We’re having a party at the house.  I look out front and those tire tracks are back.  And there are way too many cars parked in the driveway.  I rush out there to see what’s going on.  There is someone I don’t recognize changing his oil in the driveway, his car half hanging out into the yard.  The tire tracks are definitely from him.  I confront him, ask him to get lost, to leave and never return.  He ignores me.  I go inside and call the police.  When the police show up, they claim not to be able to see him.  Or any of the other cars.  The man changing his oil just laughs at me.  I try to grab him but he twists away and swings at me with his wrench.  The police are just laughing.

II.

We are about to leave on some errands.  I jump into the bathroom to pee.  Mid-stream, the flow of urine bends upward and starts to collect on the ceiling.  The moment it stops, it all falls on me.  I cry out.  A. rushes in:  is everything OK?  No, of course not.  Then my glasses fall off and break.

It’s you and me baby. The way we used to be. But older. Wiser? That’s debatable. Our conversations meander just as much. Maybe more? We avoid the important questions. Same as we always did? More so? The air is thinner. Thinner than you used to be. You’re not that thin anymore. The air between us is doing that. It stole your look just like it steals our questions, steals our transitions. The question went unasked, the move unmade, and we find ourselves in a different place. Only you’re missing and instead it’s them. It’s us. The way we used to be. But older. Sillier? There’s an urgency to wrap this up. It’s not to close it off but to bring it around. The way it used to be. Making juvenile jokes. Juveniles pretending to be adults. Only when you are the adult, casting your lot with the juveniles feels wrong. So we turn instead to other topics, other discussions. Sports. And what would happen if a lacrosse player fashioned a baseball glove? Funny how it looks a lot like a hockey goalie’s glove.

I am at a rock gym in … Maine?  It has an unusual layout and setup.  Rather than a series of routes set up along walls, you rotate between routes that are setup in “alleys” or “lanes”.  The traditional wall is replaced with what is (in essence) a tunnel, and each route quickly ascends up the sidewall to progress (sloping upward) along the ceiling to the end of the alley/lane. There are a few more traditional upward routes but even these are basically sequestered from the others, tucked away in silos.

When we arrive, the gym is basically deserted — only one or two other people in the whole place.  But there are no ropes.  We hop from route to route, looking for one that has ropes in place already.  It makes sense that they wouldn’t be “up” already — these are almost all lead routes.  But after going to fetch a rope from the counter, we return to find the interior of the gym thronging with people.  There are lines 6-8 people deep at every lane.

After a long and humiliating training, my “brother” Jedi and myself are ready for our first assignments.  Our mission?  To pilot and defend a re-purposed, Corellian-equivalent of a school bus, taking it and its Rebel contents from one secret encampment to another.  The Rebellion is young and the Empire still spreading its tentacles — Order 66 is a very recent memory.  My “brother” and I fear for our lives and for the lives of our Rebel brethren.  Danger is everywhere but to sit idle is foolishness as well.

We set out from the encampment and head along the main road for a while before turning off.  We keep driving, following this bumpy side road when suddenly, we spot a marching phalanx of clone soldiers at the top of a hill.  My “brother” turns to me with fright in his eyes.  ”Floor it,” is all I can think to say.  From inside the bus, the scene that unfolds looks like some kind of Looney Tunes moment:  clone soldiers go flying every which way or get stuck to the windshield.  Our Rebel crew is ducking down low as we are fired upon from all angles.  The soldiers get thicker outside and before we know it, more and heavier equipment gathers.  My “brothers” swerves violently to avoid being crushed by an AT-AT and our bus over-turns.

When we come to, we are bound in bracelets and being held at gunpoint in the bay of some Imperial ship.  We are surveyed by their commander.  ”Rebel scum,” and all of that.  The command is mid-tirade when someone else interrupts him — a Sith apprentice?  I manage to work my lightsabre loose and posture myself in defense of my captive brethren.  The Sith unleashes his as well and spar briefly.  He is good and it is doubtful that I could defeat him with so many clone soldiers at his back.  We tussle some more and I create enough of a diversion to flee into a network of hallways, tunnels, and ductwork to escape into an unknown darkness.

The whole “Extended Family” (plus “the new favorites”) is here for the occasion. The whole old school SMCM crew. It’s a pot luck and everyone has pulled put all the stops. There’s a little bit of everything: spicy beef tips, a herbed crusty bread, an Indian dish with lots of curry… I’ve dropped off my dish (a savory cream of bacon soup) on the buffet table and work on setting up the decks here at “the old” Sonar. Granted, they already have the house gear set up but we want to go nuts with four turntables and four CD decks. We’re having trouble finding room for everything but we’re making progress. But people are starting to sit down so I turn to start spinning but my brother has stepped in to take the first turn. Part of me is a little jealous but then I smell all that food again….