The Move:

Two dozen plastic arms flashed in neon power. A cyclopean tornado of logistical horror whirled through the house. It was time for the big move. Francis had never moved for these reasons before, it was all a new experience. He stood in the doorway as the machines shuffled and packed his belongings, green and red lasers scanned everything. The living room was a buzz with label printers, the bathroom a hiss with scrubbers and the bedroom a muffled flurry of clothes being meticulously sorted.

Francis reflected for a few moments at the eye of the tornado. Before the moving machines existed how had people moved their belongings? They would have to evaluate, categorize, and package all their possessions themselves. Francis reeled in terror; to depend so much on your present mindset, your own organizing skills. If you forgot something or misplaced something, it would be buried in forgotten boxes or tosses into the trash simply because you couldn’t remember in the moment.

Francis was going through a breakup, an old relationship. He couldn’t imagine the weight of such a task while the loss of his relationship was seeping out of his heart. He tried during those peaceful moments of reflection, but each time his mind recoiled. He went back watching the white and silver moving machines.

Francis trusted the moving machines, they knew his profile completely. All the things that were important and not important, all the tokens and keepsakes of his past. For example: they would not trash a hand-written letter from his mother nor a picture of his first serious girlfriend. They would trash old receipts, useless memories, unlicensed or copyrighted material, anything that didn’t fit within his profile. 

The white and silver armed machines finished their job within 6 hours. All of Francis’s processions were packed and boxed and sent to his new domicile. He trusted them more than he trusted himself, maybe not with everything but he explicitly trusted the system. He walked through his vacated home one last time in somber self-awareness. 

He started at the top floor, the bedroom. He remembered the fond times, the warm nights when the moon beamed down her halo of half opened eyes. He sighed, and looked at the empty room, it had been sterilized, emptied and painted already. It was only a shell and all that remained were his memories of the place. Next, he stopped by the kitchen, remembering the delicious dinners and glasses of sultry wine. The candlelight flickered one last time in his heart and then faded into the sterile square the kitchen had become. 

Room by room he repeated his invocation of memories and each time the pleasant remnants surfaced and lit up one last time. Then the lights went out, the house was dark and vacant. Francis trusted the system, he had followed the exit instructions precisely. He found that after the exit ritual he could not remember the unpleasant memories, he could not remember her face or her name. He felt a sense of relief, maybe the machines had washed more than his house, it didn’t matter anyways. Francis was moving into a new chapter of his life, a new day was waiting for him, all his things would be eager to see him in his new home. 

He wondered for a few moments while in transit, he stared out the window and ruminated on his first move. He winced at the idea of being unable to turn away from the unpleasant memories, how did older models function with such a burden? He tried to think about it a little more, but something distracted him on the horizon. 

Over the edge of the ocean he saw turbulent black and purple clouds forming, a weather system was moving in. The clouds looked like people in an embrace, something about their motion reminded him of those warm nights in his bedroom, he couldn’t see the faces anymore, but he felt something familiar in those clouds. For a brief moment he wished to feel all of it, he wanted to turn off all his fail-safes and get lost in the coming storm, he wanted to get lost in a sky of purple plumes. The haze of the night crept over the ocean and the clouds faded into an opaque blackness before he arrived at his new home. 

Francis walked up a stone path to his new home, unlocked the door and a warm wash of euphoria greeted him as everything looked familiar.

Watermelons and Manikins:

From the outward appearance the lonely nowhere town by the mountain seems perfectly peaceful. There seems to be no unusual crimes, no exotic lunacy of any sort. The teachers have small classes, the concrete strip malls all have the rainbow variety of services. Nails, pizza, cell phone services, a franchised hardware store and a Mexican restaurant can be found in the predictable corners of this little town.

The basic appearance of this town is precisely how the citizens like it. There are very aware of this outward appearance and desperately try and keep it this way. They carefully watch their neighbors and are quite mindful of behaving precisely how people expect.

I have had the lucky circumstance of visiting this place and talking to a few of the citizens. I promised to keep their names and location secret to protect the precious secret they perpetuate. It was also by sheer luck that I was entrusted enough to hear the reasons. That story will be saved for another time, but be assured I have every confidence that the secret world of this nowhere town is true.

The liquor was poured into little glasses and the sun was finally relenting its march across our brows. The blood had dried and the tears wiped off the ground. The words cautiously dripped from the lips of the townsfolk as I stared down at my drink.

They were a secret cult of sorts. Nothing superstitious, just very serious about the whole matter of not being bothered. They didn’t want to be bothered because of paranoia. They believed corporations were out to get them. They passionately believed that marketing armies were marching on the territories of the mind. These denizens of nowhere town were trying to avoid being targeted by any marketers, they wanted to be an invisible demographic.

My curiosity had assassinated my better judgement and I inquired to why would anyone want to be an invisible demographic?

The townsfolk all had very similar answers, not surprising considering the effort that they took to be unremarkable. One response was that getting what you want might not be what you actually want. A marketing team may have carefully tailored your feeds to desire something that it was selling. Yet another response was that what you want may not be something that benefits you in any way. In fact it could harm you or lead to some type of exploitive addiction.

Their culture looked identical from the outside perspective. The hidden difference being that they were only playing along, willing players in a social play of indifference. They were careful not to draw the attraction of the marketing vultures that circled overhead waiting for someone to express what they really wanted.

If you are driving through some nowhere looking town be careful. They might not be the predictable folks you think they are. They may just be playing along to avoid the attention of larger predators. Appearance is everything, much in the same way as with artwork.

I was exposed to a Chinese artist named Ren Hang one month before his suicide, a regular lunatic with a Lovecraftian eye for beauty. In one such photograph they had a series of watermelons smashed up next to a few fashion manikins. The body parts of the manikins were all separated and spread around with the watermelons. The scene looked like a massacre of a couple of bodies. There was no blood, no real gore, my brain made up the details, my brain filled in the lines.

This sleepy town has within it a seed, a tiny culture of invisibility. One day I will return, or perhaps uncover that towns everywhere are secretly part of this veiled culture. When I do return, I will know the hand signals, the little cues that I have been taught. I will know all the advertisement jingles and wear the team appropriate clothes to blend in.

What really interests me is what the town does outside the eye of surveillance, within the darkened rooms and secret meetings. What sort of lunacy do they perfect, what sort of decay are they nurturing in the shadow of demographic invisibility?

Fictional Obituaries of Forgotten People: 

Dan Milzanowitz:

Dan “The Man” was born under a sky of blue smiles. The sun looked down with hopeful eyes, squinting a little to see new twinkling potential.  The hospital was an erect shrine of baby making, a pinnacle glory to the radiance of human life. All the nearby neighborhood had been blessed with the holy waters of new life.

Dan’s constellation of circumstance was top-end factory specs, every edge cut to give every advantage. He was given music lessons as a child, he made friends easy, and saw the world with the bright eyes of wonder. He grew into a polite and kind child. His adolescence was a breeze compared to the stories from other parents. He stayed out of trouble, never touching booze or drugs. Dan’s love was for his neighborhood and his family. He wanted to make a difference, to help others with the trials of life.

He achieved success early in life, he became a designer for drugs used by athletes in a popular sport. The drugs helped rehabilitation and healing from serious injuries. He made enough money to develop a sense of philanthropy. He helped to refurbish the hospital he was born in and helped the school add another wing for the growth in the area.

Most of these things occurred before he was 50 years old. During this time, he acquired a great deal of friends, people knew who he was when he walked down the street. It would be safe to say; he was a sickening display of success. You could take a cartoon snapshot of his life and plaster it on stamps or religious text or some other overly polished image. Dan “The Man” was exactly how he appeared, it wasn’t contrived or false.

After 50 his life took a different turn. His parents died, both within a few weeks of each other. Dan had faced death, and considered himself fairly death positive with his outlook. However, the loss of both his parents took a harder toll on Dan than he was prepared for.

For the next 10 years he receded from the public light, he still kept in touch with friends and still went to the annual hospital fundraiser. During that 10 years a few more people in Dan’s life died. He went to the funerals, he paid his respects to old friends.  Each passing felt like a little light of the world had been dimmed. His world darkened year after year, funeral after funeral.

This trend continued, as it usually does. As he grew older, he saw more of his friends die and was a little more reluctant to make new friends. The erosion washed his heart with handfuls of dirt or the sprinkling of ashes. Dan’s second wife died when he was 82, and after he mourned her passing he vowed not to remarry. He didn’t want that kind of sorrow again. 

Dan never had any children regardless of his love for life. That part of his biological programming never brought the hammer down. He had spent the early part of his life helping society and felt that the public at large was more important than his need for offspring. Regardless, he now faced the last years of his life without immediate family.

Dan was also blessed with long life. He lived 10 more years and then 10 more. Each year someone else he knew was buried or burnt. Each friend in turn took their place in the dirt. Friends died that he had long conversations with, conversations lasting 20 years or more. Now those conversations were impossible, the horizon of his life was passing, and those kinds of interactions could only exist in memory.

Dan “The Man” lived until he was 106 years old. Everyone he had ever known, loved or befriended was dead. He felt like a specter in his final years, a haunt that others tried their best ignore. He reminded them of their own encroaching horizons. When he died in that erect hospital, there was no one to hold his rice paper hands.

The hospital however didn’t care, it just kept on pumping out more human beings. The production line went uninterrupted as did the beaming Sun overhead. Neither of which have any capacity to mourn a decent human being.

Men of Metal:

I live on a carefully crafted island of metal. The cliffs are made of rust and iron, they curve and twist around a small island. I was the one who made this island, slowly year after year. It has taken me a lifetime of putting this metallic shrine together, piece by piece I imported the steel beams, shipped the large plates and put together an endless array of insulation.

This island of metal doesn’t show up on any maps, it can’t be seen with satellite imagery or any contemporary technology. I have spent the blood of my life getting radar reflection, thermal masking, cloaking sonar beacons. I will spare no expense for my steel home.

Everything on this island is metal, copper, bronze, steel, discarded beams from dead skyscrapers. Each room on this beautiful island is made of countless created and reused pieces of buildings, walls, manufacturing. The chairs, dinner plates, and sometimes the guests.

To me: metal is the scar tissue of the earth, a reminder of the wounds inflicted on the green and brown body of this planet. I built this shrine of scar tissue, so I don’t forget. I am highly aware of where every ounce of the alloys come from, which mines, what manner of collection, and what history each steel beam has endured.

It was 20 years ago when I heard about real scar tissue. I was outside a restaurant listening to a poet. She was barefoot and stood tall on some milk crates, she was in the middle of public spoken word about authenticity. The poem had gotten a little too word sloshy for my tastes. I went and stood over in the outer orbit of the crowd.

There was a man with heavy scars, visible mountain ranges cresting out of his shirt. They looked intentional, they looked displayed. I risked the social taboo of asking them about their scars, were they self-inflicted or perhaps a bizarre accident?

The poet continued their word salad confetti toss, a shot gun approach to semantic expression. The man comfortably replied in low tones. He told me the scars were self-inflicted, he was a performance artist, of sorts. He was in a play that described a patient who was being operated on, a surgeon and a gruesome revelation.

He was the patient, his flesh exposed for the audience. The surgeon started the scene with a professional ignorance of the patient, just another body with dotted lines to cut. However, with each cut the surgeon would suddenly know or remember something about the patient. Culminating into a revelation of the horror of responsibility.

While I never saw the play, I was haunted by the story. The idea that responsibility, regret, guilt, could all be learned after the cut is made, consequences that are too late to change. What actions have we done in ignorance, yet to learn about them later? The future sight is always bleak, we always seem to miss something, desecrate something, or some land, some atrocity that we were inadvertently part of.

I have learned how heavy metals increase in populated area with the rise of human numbers. Environments can become stripped, contaminated, infected with lead, arsenic, and cadmium. Metal is still being used, mined and refined. We might not see it or feel it, everything that consumers use today is plastic and smooth polymers.

I don’t want to forget the scars, I don’t want to forget the cuts that past surgeons have made on humanity. Metal is hidden behind walls, spread out so wide that the scar tissue has become a second skin. I don’t want to look away, I don’t want to ignore or forget. I want to see the rusty walls of this metal island that I made.

I might get heavy metal poisoning, suffering will only remind me further. I have made my tomb, and like the ancient pharaohs, I want to leave a mountain of scar tissue that tells the future what exactly we did.

A Beautiful Day:

The coat had been passed around more times than any of the owners knew. Those that wore it soon forgot where they bought it, those that sold it never seemed to remember buying it. It floated from owner to owner, hovering in their lives just long enough.

The current owner had purchased the coat from a consignment shop. After the money exchanged hands, the shop owner scratched their head wondering where they got the coat from in the first place. There was a deep darkness in their memory, nothing from the recent or the important, nothing from the notable or strange, and nothing returned from any attempt at spelunking the brain caverns of the last few weeks.

The coat had walked out of the shop as easily as it walked in. This time, as it walked out, the current owner had nothing but admiration for the coat. It was the best kind of used coat, a garment that someone had cared about, its construction and style intact with near pristine condition. This was a front-page article of clothing.

The current coat owner wasn’t particularly interested in fashion, but it sure felt great to strut through the day with such confidence. The weather was perfect, the cool days and blue nights made that summer a gorgeous memory. The season passed, and winter hung up the coat in the back of a closet.  A heavier coat took its place and the new season rolled by.

The second year was very similar to the first, the coat was taken out of the closet and paraded for another summer. The cycle from closet to glorious summer continued for many years. The coat owner grew a little older each year. However, coat remained nearly as pristine, the heavy use and years didn’t seem to alter its comfort or beauty.

 As age sunk its teeth into the coat owner, the number of summers remaining grew smaller. The coat got a bit anxious, often becoming discovered in the front room or near the front door. It seemed to wiggle itself from the forgotten closet into the eyes of anyone nearby.

The coat owner eventually died, the circumstances were of no concern to the coat, it only wished to be seen by those cleaning the house. It propped itself on the stairs, waiting patiently for a human being to come close. It didn’t take very long before someone else found the coat, admired its qualities and developed an overwhelming urge to try it on. Once on, there was no taking it off.

The coat walked out of the house as easily as it walked in. The new owner however was not as active as the previous. They did not enjoy the summertime beauty, they were sour, and bitter. Their dreams were tart, their lifestyle secluded. They did not like going outside and feeling the fresh air and joys of existence.

The coat tried urging the owner to get outside more, gently encouraging their dreams with sunshine warmth. The owner only got more belligerent, they stuffed the coat in an old drawer, they put it inside locked boxes and behind heavy doors. They felt like they were being coerced and urged, both things they adamantly hated.

The coat tried endlessly to be seen, it refused to be put into the darkness. The coat even tried beautiful dreams of being sold, eliciting the idea that it was valuable, imaginations that selling it would bring many comforts. The coat tried being obvious and intentional, it would appear on door handles, backs of chairs, any place in plain view. 

The defiance of the owner escalated. They tried to cut the coat up, only to find it reassembled in the closet, hanging neatly on the wire. 

The coat decided the best course was forceful relocation. It went silent for nearly a year and then slowly persuaded the owner to try it on, it probably wouldn’t fit anyways. The coat did its best to look harmless, disenchanted, like a piece regret.

The owner tried it on, cautiously donning the nondescript coat. The coat seized up, a bright flare of influence, a burning radiance of awareness. The coat shrunk in a contorted groan. The arms inching down the wrists and forearms. The neck opening closing slowly as the coat owner clawed at the buttons. The pockets transforming into locks and zippers.  

The next few minutes were painful and awkward. The coat crushed them slowly, constricting the last breath of the defiant sourpuss. They died in their bedroom from broken ribs and a strangled neck. The coat patiently waited for someone to come and clean up the dead body, so it could get outside and enjoy the sunshine.

Steel Heart:

The train was a relic, a museum keepsake that could move your bones from one place to another. They don’t use trains anymore for mass transit, the infrastructure is too demanding. Now its all plastic vehicles with onboard monitoring. Trains are old-fashioned.

Some of us like the old vibe, the plunge into one’s imagination of what it was like to ride the train. I like the idea of the older style mass transit. I heard that some people used trains for business commuting, everyday riders, dawn-treaders, midnight meetings in train car 3 with endless bourbon. I wanted a piece of that, just a little taste. I paid good money to ride this relic.

The train was clean, yet a little ragged. The tour conductor made mention several times that the seats were clean, despite their used posture. We were shown where the tickets would be displayed, they showed the size the bathrooms, the mechanism for opening and closing doors. The doors had all been refitted with automatic openers, cameras and photo locations peppered the train cars. You could get one of the countless photos that were taken periodically printed out on physical paper and framed as a memento if you desired.

Some of the insincere tourism disenchanted me, but after an hour looking outside and a couple Bloody Marys, I was getting into the experience. I opened my device and read the history of train routes, pausing now and again to gaze out at the beautiful water. The route of this train was cresting the edge of a calm and peaceful tide. The water was glass, the train ride was pleasant and the chatter of folks in my train car put me into a sleepy stupor.

I dreamt of the train engine, the hot metal beat of a steel heart. The bright gleam of the used rails, the worn wheels spinning with their angled arms attached in a repetitive march. It was building up, a powerhouse rushing down a thin line, predetermined. The engine felt utterly single minded, something I haven’t felt in a long time. I was enjoying the dreamscape, then the course turned, racing around a bend. I saw a freeway overpass with the graffiti “Labrat” sprayed on the concrete bridge. I felt a sinking feeling as the train derailed, that explosive single mindedness recklessly shook me awake.

I looked around quickly, taking a quick inventory of myself. It was just a dream, I was still in the train car travelling at a peaceful speed around the edge of the glassy water. The emergency stayed with me though, I could feel the engine still, the steel heart thumping. While half in my dream hangover and the other half ordering another drink, I found myself moving closer to the front of the train. I wanted to hear the engine beat louder.

When I got to the front car it was crowded. We were shoulder to shoulder, everyone had given up on comfortable personal space. I nudged my way up to the front, everyone looked a little spaced out. Their eyes were glossed over and staring at the door to the engine room. I could feel the reason why; the engine was quite pleasant to listen to. The “chugga chugga” turned over from the iron and steel, oil and leverage. I felt that reason grow a little bit louder. Then it hit me, I could feel the beat, the rhythm of the engine. Such an experience was new to me, I had not expected this. Something like this was more primitive than train details and sweeping landscapes.   This was an entirely unexpected immersion.

As these thoughts, a self-awareness washed over me, I found myself standing and staring with the same glossy eyes as these strangers. I closed them and could see it clearly: An iron and steel machine, molten veins pumping the blood of an ancient technology, like the heart of an angry beast. The weight of its rhythm pouring me into it, the hot fires of frequency, the rail bound destination that was un-alterable. The single line of purpose was intoxicating. 

The front most train car was very warm with all those people, all that internal combustion. I got lost in it for a few minutes and then shuffled out. I passed by people moving in and could see the same yearning in their faces, right about to surface. I was satisfied for now, I returned to my seat, and soon the train came to the end of the trip. I bought a couple pictures in the gift shop, and decided to schedule another trip for the following year. I thought to myself that this would be a great tradition, to return to the great steel beating heart. Perhaps a part of me is a bit old fashioned.

Paperwork:

Jerry was a denizen of the 5^th layer of Hell. He lived in fire and brimstone, hot pokers, endless pain, great music and no way out. He woke up in Hell, fell asleep in Hell, got hungry in Hell and most importantly; worked in Hell.

He had been there for a while, probably 1700 years, he lost count after the first few hundred. The hours and years ticked over and it was the same hot mess all over again. Hell, just kept erupting, year after year with new people, new sins, new shames that people could suffer from. Whole generations of guilt impaled ghosts, anxiety implosions, people bound up in some variety of transgression.

The particulars of these transgressions aren’t unimportant, and like Jerry, the new neighbors would get accustomed to the suffering of Hell. This condition isn’t something that is advertised in descriptions of Hell; that you can get used to it. At some point the human animal just gives up, just throws up their hands and accepts the endless waste. Human beings can get used to anything, and even in a supernatural plane of existence, this attribute appears to worm itself into those hellish plumes.

Jerry was sent to hell because he killed his son. He smothered him with a pillow, didn’t even think about. His son was born deformed, he was crooked, his spine was a pretzel. His mind was deformed too, like a vine, that twisted up the side of a ruined building, all knotted together. The wailing from his son’s room would demand some sort of attention, this wail had been developed from infancy and into his earlier teens. A creature that lived in a single bedroom with only disfigured cries as a voice.

Jerry had tried his best, but the hideous nature of his child had eroded him. It sliced away his kindness, year after year caring for the twisted child in the next room. They would never grow up to be anything different. Their lifetime that would amount to nothing, a senseless dead-end, a biological disappointment.

He snapped, it only took a second, too much pressure was applied to his sense of compassion. Of course, he felt horrible afterwards.  He felt horrible and guilty until his last breath. Then, once in Hell, he continued to feel horrible. Now 1700 years later, he is in the habit of feeling horrible and is stuck in Hell. He has lost his imagination to feel anything else.

Today, Jerry was reading the Hell newspaper and noticed there was a new boss in town. They offered an alternate route out of Hell. New routes don’t come around very often, and in Jerry’s 1700 years in Hell he only knew a few. The new route was promised to be easy, fast, professional, tested, and most importantly: fair.

Jerry was interested, he wanted leave, but he didn’t have his back logged regret paperwork taken care of. All those years wasted had to be accounted for, they had to be properly stamped, signed, consented to, understood, explained, ect. ect. Self-determination can take a long time to prove. This new boss promised an end to the overwhelming paperwork.

Jerry put his newspaper down and wrote down the contact information. The phone rang twice before the new boss answered. He told Jerry that all he had to do was agree to serve Hell 1000 years and he could certainly get him out. He promised complete contracts, backup documentation, redundant services of every sort. He just needed 1000 years of service.

Jerry thought about it for a few dozen years. He decided that a certain route out was better than an uncertain one. He agreed to the 1000 years of service. The new boss gave him a few thousand pieces of paper to sign, a dozen passwords to memorize, 15 subservices he was required to preform and document. 

The 1000 years blinked by in Hell. Jerry remained unchanged. The 1000 years of service ended, the new boss was now the Old Scratch. Jerry contacted him the day the contact was up. Jerry was ready to leave, he served his time, he paid his dues, 2700 years in this Hell-hole. 

Old Scratch chuckled, and reminded Jerry that unfortunately, all the documentation had been lost in the annual Hellfires. There was no record of his contractual service. Jerry was actually late on some of his dues, and some of his documentation had regret errors that needed to be corrected. 

Jerry apathetically shrugged his shoulders and got started on the paperwork for wasting 1000 years.

Eshuma and the Venomous Knife:

The mountain stood alone on the horizon. Those that lived near it called it the Spire for its single twisting peak. There was a valley where two rivers joined in the cradle of the mountain. Snow fell in heaps near the top and blessed those that lived underneath with generous rain and clear water.

The Spire was home to many strange folk, many that lived their entire lives in the dewy forests and the pristine streams, who had no need to ever leave such a place of beauty. Perhaps the strangest of the folk that lived in the lushness and grace of the mountain was the Fae. Eshuma was such a creature, a gnome to be more specific. While at first glance he appeared to be a short human being, thin and energetic, much like his eyebrows and wiry hair. On second glance his nose was unusually long, and his eyes shined with a brilliant green.

Eshuma had lived between the world of human beings and with the deeper Fae of the old roots, the kind of roots that reach down into the seat of the mountain. For those not familiar with the Fae, they are creatures untroubled by the bleakness of death. The Fae see the inevitability of death as fated, unchangeable, foretold in the stars and it is folly to burden yourself with the motion of greater tides. As creatures they have their own rules to live by and their own history to remember. The Fae are, in a way: innocent, the importance of progress has escaped them.

Besides gnomes, there are pixies, nixies, grigs, sprigs, brownies, nymphs, undines, dryads, and countless other creatures that share a heartstring with the world. The green glades and streams of the Spire mountain housed many such creatures under the long roots of old trees and in the wandering caves of isolated waterfalls. Eshuma lived in such a cave, a deep chasm of dark mushrooms and winding roots. He was a root-tender and lived with the cricket-legged mushroom grigs most of his life. His gnomish family had a strange disposition for wanderlust and the last of his kin had left before he was old enough to learn the names of mushrooms. The grigs had taken good care of Eshuma, they taught him the language of human beings, as well as the songs of plants and trees.

As he grew older, his wanderlust had crept up on him much like his ancestors, a sneaky itch. He was enjoying a sunset outside his cave when he saw human beings passing on a rarely used mountain trail. They had carts full of trinkets and clanking pieces of iron. Tall poles wrapped in ribbons and flags, bags filled with geometric shapes, straw ropes, metal buckles, all sorts of things Eshuma had never seen.

For a few hours he followed them deep into the forest near the bottom of the mountain. He had briefly thought of turning back, but the unknown proved a stronger tease. When they made camp, he watched from a rotten tree trunk, Eshuma was barely four feet tall, making it quite easy to escape the eyes of these travelers. He fell asleep under a large fern as the last of the firelight dimmed. He dreamt of a parade of fairies all beating those metal pots and pans, throwing those ribbons into waterfalls and singing and dancing. He slept quite comfortably under the arms of an old fern.

Unfortunately for Eshuma, the size of his nose also meant his snores were equal in greatness. The human beings had discovered the sleeping gnome, they tied him up and put him in the back of one of the carts. He slept so deep that he was not roused as they bound his hands and feet. Eshuma awoke from the deep sleep to find himself inside the belly of the fascinating cart. He had no problem slipping the ropes and started rifling through the trinkets and doodads. Some of the objects found their way into his brown stitched pants and into the folds of his bent green hat.

Eshuma was awake in that cart for 15 minutes before the human beings started shouting. The horses and humans came to a halt and Eshuma poked his head out to see the commotion. Other human beings with long shiny swords and spears were putting the sharp pieces into the drivers of the carts, humans were hunting humans, like bears and cougars. Their faces wretched in pain, then they laid still on the ground.

Eshuma grabbed what he could and escaped out of the cart before the sword-wielding hunters could see him. He watched intently as they sorted and looted. Eshuma wondered why the humans would hunt each other, then leave the bodies, this meaninglessness only teased him further. After an hour, the carts had been scoured of their trinkets and ribbons, all the foodstuffs and iron buckles bagged up to be carried off somewhere else. 

The hunters left, and the single gnome survivor gazed around at the scene. He looked up to the mountain and could not see his cave, he had traveled further than he wanted. However, his pockets were full and perhaps other human beings in the area might be able to tell him what is so important about trinkets and doodads and iron buckles. His wanderlust urged him to explore the smoke rising further down the mountain, a small valley and river marked the destination.

There was an instinctual consideration that bubbled up in Eshuma, he had no way to defend himself. If the hunter humans found him, what would he do? He found a discarded tool in the heap of leftovers, a small skinning knife with spots of rust. He didn’t know much about swordplay, but what he did know was roots and mushrooms, plants and trees. He sung the song of the Grig, a clicking grasshopper sound, and he spoke to the trees and the roots. He asked them which of them could stop the shiny swords, what could stop him from turning into one of those wrenching faces that laid face down on the trail.

The song of trees answered back, they knew the clicks of the Grig. A pinch of dirt from under the red grass by a rotten tree would bring a fire to the brain and limbs of human beings.  Eshuma found the red grass easily, he could hear it chiming through the forest. Underneath the grass he scooped a handful of dirt into a pouch for later. He took a small wooden vial of honey and smeared some on the knife, then the dirt from the red grass was applied on top of that. He covered the blade with a thin waxed cloth and then neatly tucked into a shoulder pocket. The dirt contained a fungus human beings called Ergot.

Of course, a single gnome that talks to plants is perhaps no match for a gang of bandit killers but Eshuma felt more powerful than he ever had. The trees and forest had given him a weapon, a defense against the senselessness he had witnessed. However, after the cart ride he was feeling equally hungry as he was empowered. He hoped that the rising smoke was from cooking, something human beings were rumored to do with great skill. The cricket-legged grigs had told him all about cheese and sweets, wine and beers, roasts and pies. Thinking about such things now salted his curiosity for more man-made experiences.

Eshuma trotted down the cart trail towards the smoke with a half skip and a whistle. He politely waved at the swaying trees and bushes along the way. He caught the eye of a nixie wrapped around a pond, their blinking eyes sending ripples of greeting. Eshuma was very hungry when he finally reached the small human town. He looked around the edges before venturing in, he saw no sign of the human hunters.

He walked cautiously into the town, few human beings made eye contact, most seemed occupied with their own busy work. He tried out his best human words with “Hello, how are you?” and “Great day for a picnic!” and a few others, he was thrilled to speak in human tongue. He jingled slightly with the items scavenged from the cart as he crisscrossed the small town looking for a place to eat.

He didn’t understand the symbols above the doors, except for one which looked like a cooking pan. To Eshuma’s delight they served skillets of foodstuffs, “hot and fresh” said the human at the tall wooden counter. Eshuma dug out a small red spool of ribbon and asked if this was a good trade? “Of course not”, the human shook his head and said that coin or service was all they accepted.  Eshuma wondered what sort of service they meant and replied that service would be acceptable. The human brought him back to a sink full of dirty dishes and told him to wash them clean, once clean he could order a skillet of food.

Gnomes are not savages, they can tell when something is socially looked down on, they are generally perceptive creatures. Eshuma was left alone with dirty dishes, full of crusts and grease, pieces of bacon too burnt for human consumption. Eshuma cleaned those dishes, but also took his time nibbling the left-over pieces. He was a quick dishwasher and whistled while he worked. Within an hour the dishes were cleaned and Eshuma had enjoyed a pleasant appetizer of food scraps.

The human was satisfied with the labor and let Eshuma order any skillet he wanted. He chose the Fried Potato Special, a delightful dish of eggs, potatoes and onions. Another hour later and Eshuma was ready to explore more of the town. He left the spool of red ribbon in the kitchen as payment for the scraps.

Now with a full belly and a fresh perspective Eshuma found a symbol above a door that looked like a needle. He loved fine clothes, there was nothing richer than a beautiful pair of pants and a fine hat. He had only dabbled, and with limited resources had only fashioned lose-stitched clothes. When he walked into the busy shop, eyes locked unto him.

He produced a few spools of ribbon and some iron buckles and asked if he could have some green pants and a matching hat. The value of the ribbon and buckles were worth ten times more than Eshuma knew. The tailor smiled and said they would make him a shirt to match, laughing together, they exchanged goods. While he waited for them to alter some children’s clothes for his needs he investigated the shop. Threads and scraps of material littered the floor.

Eshuma was no savage, he waited until no one was looking before pocketing brightly colored pieces for later, he knew he would have to repair his hat and pants later. He found a worn thimble and two lost needles that needed a home. When he left, his grin was brighter than his new pants, shirt and hat. He had also traded a couple more iron buckles for a canvas bag to store his old clothes in, as well as the remaining trinkets from the cart. His bag slung over his shoulder, and his human accent getting better each conversation.

The small well-dressed gnome was full to the brim with human exposure, however he was feeling the call of the dark cave. His long nose could almost smell the mushrooms of his cozy alcove. He decided he would start heading back now, there was plenty of time to return and his wanderlust itch had been scratched sufficiently for now.

He waved goodbye to the human beings, few returned the wave and the rest went about their busy work or whatever important tasks they were preoccupied with. Eshuma learned that iron buckles and ribbons could be turned into new pants and a stylish bright hat. He began his trek up the mountain, he patted his shoulder pocket and reassured himself that if any shiny sword wielding human hunters bothered him he would be ready.

A few hours up the mountain, climbing up switchbacks, Eshuma’s little legs carrying him slowly yet surely. He stopped to eat some delicious berries and a couple of brown mushrooms in the afternoon. He was elated from the experience and that seemed to be enough to carry him home.

It was in the twilight hours that he heard the footsteps and smelled a human being up the trail. They smelled like wine, the acrid vapor wafting in the shadows of the trees. As he got closer he could make out the human shape, lumbering up ahead. They were walking irregularly and slowly. The human being was mumbling to themselves, as if they were talking to the road, staring intently at their feet, desperately putting one foot in front of another.

Eshuma’s curiosity got the better of him and with all the practice at speaking today he was eager to dazzle this slow and plodding human with his quick conversational skills. “Good day, how is your walk going, what do you see on the ground, do you have any more wine? I haven’t tasted wine yet but if it’s like the Potato Special, then I want to try it. Are you ok? What is wrong with your legs?”

The lumbering drunk rocked back on their heels. They strained to focus on gnome, their dim eyes following the length of Eshuma’s nose and the full sack on his shoulders. The drunken human leered at Eshuma, grinning a smile of rotten and neglected teeth, a tongue that betrayed dark desires. Eshuma recognized the leer, it was the same as the hunter humans, the smile that he didn’t understand, the mouth of murder. Eshuma stopped talking and put his hand over his shoulder pocket and started to warn the drunken human being.

Before Eshuma could issue a warning, the drunk produced a shiny sword from a sheath hidden by the sunset shadows. The drunk grabbed Eshuma by his new shirt and lifted him off the ground. The shiny sword coming to Eshuma’s throat. “Let’s see what you have in the bag little man.”

Eshuma had two tricks up his sleeve, the first was his knife, but he was unable to retrieve it due to his compromised position. The second was the gnomish knack, a trick that all gnomes knew and rarely called upon to use. Eshuma blinked quickly and summoned the darkness in his blood, that deep Fae blood that grows in the dark caves of echoes. The drunk heard a rush of a waterfall and a crashing tree behind him, this was an auditory illusion, a trick of the brain. The drunk spun around in startled surprise, still holding Eshuma with one hand but losing the position of his shiny sword upon Eshuma’s neck. The distraction was enough for Eshuma to get his small knife from his shoulder pocket and stab it down into the drunken bandit’s arm. The honey held the ergot dirt on the blade and plenty of it was injected into the bandit’s blood.

The human being cried out in pain, dropping Eshuma to the ground. The gnome scurried quicker than the their eyes could follow. The ergot fungus now worked its way quickly through the bloodstream, perhaps quickened by the wine. The human being was now in the grips of a brain fire, their body alive with a terrible wracking fungus.

Eshuma watched the human being writhe in horrible pain. When the human being couldn’t take any more of the fire on the inside, they used the shiny sword on themselves. The twisted face draining of life as the blood flowed out. The gnome watched dispassionately and vowed never to be taken off guard again.

He now understood the venom of the red grass. He ran through the night, his little legs aching and trembling. He got back to his hidden cave in the early shadows, an hour before sunrise. He slept deeper than he ever had, he dreamed of fairies cooking with skillets and sewing little green hats, and listened to the songs of old trees as his heartstrings calmed down. He had enough of the world of human beings to slake his wanderlust for now.

The Piano:

 The door was half open, pieces of light propped up the outside living room. I was in the guest room, in the dark. My guts were bubbling and rolling around, I had some recent stomach flu that was making the rounds. My eyes burned, and my mind was focused almost completely on the waves of nausea.

The waves were calm, I was trying my best to slip into unconsciousness. The light from the other room was accompanying by some soft jazz. At least it wasn’t saxophone diarrhea, the kind of music that just falls out of a frantic musician. I think if that starts up I will muster the strength to close the door and put the pillow over my head.

Momentary lapses of consciousness, or is it sleep? It is hard to tell in this fever. I don’t know how long I have been sleeping, the thoughts in my head are like broken stained glass, they look like they go together but I can't see the picture. I was dreaming that a police officer came in the house, asking my friend about where I was last night. They told him they hadn’t seen me, but through the crack in the door I saw them look at the guestroom. My friends covered for me, but why? I was here last night, unable to do any crime, why would the police want to talk to me?

Was that a dream? I can’t tell, I do know that I dreamt about ice cream. It was so cold I remember asking the apathetic ice cream scoop employee for mint ice cream. I remember putting the ice cream on my eyes and how much relief it felt. I wonder how much those employees get paid to rent out their time and brains. People don’t think of work as renting themselves, but I do. People all over the world rent themselves out, their brains or body or time, some resource they were born with in exchange for a resource they want.

Right now, I feel like I am renting my body out to this virus or crud or whatever this wrenching stomach curse is. It is using my body for its needs and all I can do is lay here. The horizon in the dark spins on me, the waves are coming back. I can feel myself submerge, like a little cork in a big ocean. The buoyancy of consciousness constantly driving me back up to the surface. The soft jazz is gone, and I can hear laughter, someone is visiting, I can’t tell who. I strain to hear who the voice is, but my ears are ringing. I hear a thin white line, it stops me cold in thought.

I’m burning up again, I can feel sweat around my neck. How long was I asleep? There is a dim daylight fuzzing through the curtains and the light is off in the main room. I don’t hear any voices. I think everyone went to work. I should check my device and see what is going on, but the thought of getting up seems futile. There is a large cup of water next to my bed that refills itself, I can only take small sips before the avalanche of murmurs rolls down my stomach.

Sleep sounds good again, I am feeling cold and the blankets are a deep cave. I crawl down into them, covering my face hoping to block out any light. The thin white line of ringing in my ears doesn’t care about the blankets and continues its relentless alarm. I can feel myself dipping under the horizon again.

The stained-glass memory returns, I can hear cops moving around in the house looking for me. Their orders being barked out like blood hounds with a scent. “Check the bedroom!” I hear them, and with lightning quick reaction scurry under the bed. I back into the edge of the darkness, I can hear them stomp into my room and knock over the ever-filling glass of water.   Do they know what a magical relic they casually destroyed? What brutes, what reckless authoritarians!

They rip off the blankets searching for me. I can feel myself tensing up and know they will be checking under the bed in mere seconds. I feel myself shrink, getting smaller with tension. I can see their black shiny boots getting larger as the horizon of the floor moves up. I see them grab a flashlight and shine it under the bed. I am so small by the time the flashlight shines, it is a sun, a bright beacon of pain. The light rings in my ears as I feel the horizon rise up further. I sink into a black sea of nausea again. 

I wake up, feeling burned by the light. My body is wet with fear. The glass of water next to my bed is full again. The light from the main room is dim. I can hear the music; my beloved is playing piano in the main room. The soft keys drive away the nightmare with a cool melody. What angelic timing, what relief. 

I can feel my body slipping back under the horizon into sleep. This time the thin white line isn’t there, the darkness is cool and calm. My stomach is a solid rock sinking to the ocean floor, this time without me.