In Which Things Converge And The Future Becomes Muddled

There’s a story I know, I just never remember how to tell it.

—

Years pass. The man in the tunnels has faced the giant spider and accepts the fact that he may be underground for a long, long time.

Deep into his journey, he hears an echo of a voice he once knew and sees a light blinking in the distance. He ignores this as a distraction, figuring his situation is playing tricks on him. He goes deeper and deeper and deeper, in search of a truth he’s afraid might never exist.

Until he finally…finally pays attention to that echo. Until he finally turns to the blinking light at the far tunnel and actually focuses.

Suddenly, he knows what’s important to him. Suddenly, he can justify all the time he’s spent just waiting in the darkness.

So he moves toward the source of the echo. That’s when the ceiling above him collapses. A ladder falls firmly in front of him. And for the first time in what seems like a lifetime, he sees a way out.

And as he stares dumbfounded at the red, angry sky above him, the blinking light grows dimmer. And dimmer. And dimmer.

—

I don’t know why I’m waiting to tell you how desperately I want to see you. I’m frightened. I miss you.

I wish I had just listened to you.

The Trash Battle Pt. 1 / Four Days Until Seattle

The Skyscraper – Basement Trash Levels

Phil (The Third One) fires lasers from his phone at the relentless army of trash-compactor droids that are encroaching on him and his friends, during this scene that is more than a little influenced by Star Wars: A New Hope.

Behind him Theodora, Blondie, VeggieFem, DudeBro, Mitch, and Martha (but not that Martha), dog pile onto a particularly vicious organic mutant that’s emitting a toxic gas.

DudeBro shoves a grenade inside the mutant’s mouth.

The resulting explosion wipes out the droid army, but sends our heroes scattering in all directions.

—

Fairfax, Va – The Present

I guess the biggest thing going on in my life is this trip to see my brother for Thanksgiving. It’ll be my first time seeing him since he started working for this Giant Corporation.

You know me, I like to travel.

Besides that, I’ve gotta keep trying to figure out my next steps for St. Jane. Namely, how to get to a point where I can afford to hire regular writers and contributors. This little website is the only thing that inspires me to actually do multiple steps in a process.

Saturday night, I bought six beers and took them into the office, which was empty, obviously. I felt like applying for a new job. I felt like launching new writing on the website. I felt like doing something, because I was completely and utterly impotent regarding the emotions that were actually occupying my mindspace.

I got as far as a USAJobs resume builder. But then I got distracted tweeting music lyrics. I got through all my six beers. The Democratic debate started. By the time my attention came back to the resume, my login session had timed out and I was booted off the website.

A World We Vaguely Recognize: Phil On Phil’s Trail

The cat in my face wasn’t the immediate indicator that it should have been when I woke up.

A few possibilities emerged in my head before the obvious one.

Maybe the cats and I had been magically transported somewhere far away from the real world, for instance.

But eventually, my memory booted up and I recalled the circumstances that brought me here.

I was trying to end an investigation into the disappearance of one Phillip S. Phorward. And I was becoming extremely over-schedule.

—–

The New River Valley

“I don’t get it, why do you want to find this guy?” Ralph asked, before shoving a Moe’s burrito directly into his face. It was disgusting to watch.

“Because he’s still affecting my life.”

I waited the requisite 7 seconds for Ralph to swallow an approximate 16 ounces of cheese-laden steak and rice. A bit of lettuce hung from his lip. “He’s affecting your life because you let him. The man himself is dead.”

I poked at my Who Is Kaiser Salsa half-heartedly with a chip and muttered, “You can’t kill someone who never really lived.”

Ralph snorted, letting some rice fly over to my tray. “You’re so fucking dramatic, Phil.” He slid a napkin under his moist noise. “Hey, you wanna grab a pint at the pub after this?”

I scooped a bit of Kaiser salsa and felt a satisfying crunch as I bit into my chip. I chewed. Thought about it. And swallowed. “Sure.”

Prologue 6: A Story I Know, But Can’t Remember

Burke Lake Park. 11 in the morning.

It’s mostly me and some middle school students, split across various activities. One large group was playing freeze tag in a clearing. I kept moving around the lake’s perimeter, following a less-manicured trail. And that’s where I found this spot, mostly secluded.

Right now, I feel like if I’m going to get any sort of flash of inspiration or sign from a high power, it’s going to be here. But I’m not going to put the laptop away. I want to work through this.

---

There’s a story I know, I just never remember how to tell it.

It involves a man who finds himself in a pit one day, only vaguely recalling how he got there and with no idea how to get out. There’s tunnels, some of which lead deeper underground, but there’s no ladder, no roots, no rope. So the man follows the tunnels, occasionally finding more openings far above his head to the outside world, but no way to get to them. Sometimes he sits and waits for days and days, hoping for some sort of idea or miracle to pull him out of the tunnel system. On overcast days, he can no longer see these openings, and he follows the tunnels further.

The man isn’t completely alone, as the tunnels are filled with moles and giant ants, which communicate with him in their own way. Some moles are curious about the outside world, but don’t really assume they can ever reach it. The ants have no interest in the outside world at all. The ants and the moles keep the man fed, but just barely, and it’s always extremely taxing to negotiate with them. Mostly they want him to relay messages back and forth between mole and mole, ant and ant, mole and ant, ant and mole.

Several weeks into this existence, stressed and fatigued, the man hears a voice echoing in the tunnels that is neither ant, nor mole. Entranced by the prospect of finally encountering something new,  the man recklessly follows the voice deep into an abandoned section of the tunnels. The moles and the ants avoid this place. But the man isn’t scared of what lies down there. He’s scared of what will happen if he stays where he is. He keeps following the voice, hearing it get stronger as he progresses deeper underground.

After a long, long time, the man finds the source of the calling: A giant spider, covered in fine bristles and dripping saliva from its mandibles. The spider has only one eye in the center of its narrow face.

The man is repulsed and begins to run away when he hears the spider protest. Like the moles and like the ants, the spider doesn’t exactly speak the man’s language. Yet he understands her. And he recognizes something about that voice.

In fact, the spider is calling out his name.

And finally, the man remembers how he fell into the pit in the first place.

Prologue 5: How It Goes, Elsewhere

The hovel. 4 am.

This is an hour where any individual analogous to my temperament should be sharing with the person they love, whether conscious or otherwise. Whether physically or connected through a psychic bond.

This is how it goes. Elsewhere:

Phil is fast asleep. Were this an avant garde production, we’d just watch him sleeping – if not peacefully, then determinedly – for 3 more hours. Phil gets up at 7 am, because that’s what you do when you have big days ahead of you. And Phil has a lot of big days.

But you don’t have three hours to kill. You’re a busy person. You’ve got plans. Brunch, right? Some errands, probably about the house? There’s at least some streaming video you want to watch. So we won’t watch him sleep, setting his jaw, conquering some foe in a subconscious that is volatile, yet supportive.

Fast forward three hours.