What's Left?9-15-2007
It's nighttime. I'm outside my home, but it's a home I never had. The remains of a wooden swing hang from a shadowy tree in the yard. A tall wooden fence blocks my view. My dad is at a workbench in the darkness of the garage, messing with my computer, because he thinks he found viruses on it. If he did, it wasn't from me, and regardless, he shouldn't be touching my stuff.
My mom has been inside for a while, making a mess in the family room. Building me a new wife, since my other one left me earlier in the day. Was my previous wife a robot, too? I don't remember, anymore. After a while you can't tell the difference.
I step inside my home. The lights are out. I call out, and the robot responds. I can barely make out her figure sitting in my dad's old chair among the boxes and packing she came with. She sits a little to the side, her legs together and her hands clasped in her lap. Her head hanging down a bit.
"I'm not very good at talking yet," she says, "but I've been practicing the word 'Thursday' all day." Her speech is awkward, but still endearing, almost like a foreign accent. I kneel down by her and put my hand on her leg to feel how real it is. It's very real.
I think back to all those dreams I had where my parents did stupid things, and when I'd yell at them at the top of my lungs. Things like, "Get the fuck outta here!" Did those things really happen? I don't think so. They must've been dreams. Did I really have those dreams, or did I just think I did?
There isn't much familiar about this place.
Time passes and daylight comes. I pull into a parking lot. I see Jackie Chan, an old black guy from the gym, and my lunch friend Tim getting together under a tree. I'd forgotten that this was the place they met on this day every year, to fight. It was a way of commemorating their friendship, for as many long-standing friendships do, it started with a fight. I was fortunate to catch it last year, and it was quite something.
I get out my camera and turn on the video, but night falls instantly and I can't get a good picture. I run toward the site, but they disperse. I continue and find many college kids camping out at a good vantage point on the grass. I'm in a dorm courtyard. One group carries a piece of furniture from one building to the next as a practical joke. I take a seat on a comfortable patch of ground, but then wonder if it's an anthill and stand back up.
The Rock comes over and hands out hard, blue candy from a plastic bag. He also gives everyone a roll of tape and gets everyone's attention. He starts to peel the tape from the roll and says, "This roll of tape is you. It has many layers. On the surface is your personality, wrapped around your core." He and everyone else, including me, unravels his tape as he speaks. "Keep unraveling, and you find your hopes and dreams..." and so on, until everyone is left with an unraveled piece of tape. "What's left?" he asks.
"Nothing!" I shout, because there is no single part of a person that makes a person who they are. But he ignores me and talks about disabled children, bringing himself to tears before running off across a bridge. It's then that I realize he is disabled, his arms and legs in braces. Explains why I haven't seen him around lately.
I tell someone a story about how I broke out of prison in Antarctica, then took a small boat to France and fought ghouls. I don't remember the point of it, but I figured I'd pull their leg for a while. The previous night, I dreamt about breaking out of prison, so it was still on my mind.
posted by Phlegm at 9/15/2007
(0) comments
