eleriah / iwadoj

The Valentine-pink salmon in the fridge was getting a little old. A bit past the optimal cooking time. The fridge scene was getting a bit old too. Too dark, too crowded, too cold. So when a sleepy hand came groping for a midnight snack, the salmon quietly slipped out and made its way to the basement.

It was dirty, punishing work, moving out of water, though the stairs brought back fond childhood memories. Until then, it had had no plan, only out, but the dirt and the memories brought the plan: return to the sea.

There were only a few thousand problems with that – the number of bodylengths it was away from the sea, and the means of getting there.

The salmon refused to get discouraged. After all, it had already been caught, gutted, frozen, sawn into pieces, thawed, sold, and left in a fridge for days. 'No sense crying over spilled milt', it thought.

It searched the basement, found the door and the locks, and, leaping up, opened them.

It pondered. It of course knew instinctively where the sea was, since all salmon have GPS built-in so they can return to the places of their birth. But the idea of hoofing it all the way to the sea didn't appeal to it. Too long, too dirty, too dangerous, no hooves.

It flopped down the road, pondering more, until it came to a road with cars driving on it. Huge cars, roaring past. The salmon contemplated trying to hitch a ride on one that stopped at a light, but the truth is they were too big and terrifying, and there was no way to control which way they would go.

Then, miraculously, a late-night college student came home, riding a bicycle, and the salmon was inspired. A bicycle! Not too big and scary, well except for the too-big part, and simple enough for a salmon to understand.

It returned to the basement it had left, and sure enough, there was a bicycle.

Now, if you're unfamiliar with salmon, you might discredit it when I tell you that the salmon shrank the bicycle to fit it. But consider: it has GPS built in (everyone already knows that). And what is GPS? GPS converts a position on the globe to a position on a small manageable map – in essence, shrinking a macrocosm to a microcosm. As such, GPS in a salmon is just a particular use of a more general adaptation, namely, the ability to shrink things if said shrinking helps the fish to get to where it wants to go.

And so, to make a short story short, the bicycle shrank, and the salmon got on and did its best to imitate the student that had passed by. It turned out to be harder than anticipated, but in time the salmon was on its way. And as the sun rose the next morning, the old, exhausted, gutted, sawn, frozen, thawed, dirty, sold fish dropped its bicycle, and slipped into the cool welcoming waters of the bay.

'Wait!', cried the bicycle. 'Take me with you!'

♥

The humans were coming to visit and I had been trying happily for hours to think of some activities for them. Happy wasn't working, I decided, so I switched to angry.

Something dangerous then. Memorable and scary – if they survived to remember. Nothing trite though – no fanged monsters, crazed hunting, escape from some prison. I considered possibilities, and a plan slowly developed. It might be better if I didn't know about it though – a proper host should share with the guest. So after plans were set in motion I cleared my mind.

The humans were coming to visit and I had been trying angrily for hours to think of some activities for them. Angry wasn't working, I decided, so I switched to serene disinterest. They'd probably come up with something themselves.

Ancient barnyard spork turds flamed out above our frog gazebo, gnashing their gums on each other's arms with sleepy disinterest.

Turdfall.

A dragon spoon herded the turdy embers into a small heap, lifted them into the coffee can, then smoothed the ground of the last few specks. Clank clank on the can's edge, then on with the lid. The dragon spoon, released, crept away and disappeared under some rotting planks.

A large potato man lifted the can onto his wagon and began the trek into the city. If you've ever deep-fried a whole potato that's six or seven feet tall, that's not this potato man, for a number of reasons, but that should give you a general idea.

Potatos pulling carts tend to plod. Carrots sleep in, pass them by later. The late vegetable doesn't get the turd can though.

My sandwich arrives. Frilly toothpicks.

My fries arrive. No frills.

My sorbet arrives in a luminescent frog dish – flavor something like anise and butterscotch.

I eat and drink the eatables and drinkables, then pat my tummy and burp. The waiter brings me a mint toothpick and a folding cot, setting up the latter in a spot of sun. I stretch, i wriggle, i nap.

I dream. Row after row of drab utilitarian military buildings in the desert sun. They feel like the death of all creativity to me. There's an anthill with big red ants by my feet.

Something wet and sticky splashes on my face and i wake. Compound polyhedral soap bubbles drift by above my face. A left-handed person with hair and clothes is creating them. I often prefer to not be woken by soap bubbles splashing wetly on my face.

The world grows dim and flat, a gray lifeless scrawl of matter – and then it passes. Most of the streetgoers look a bit unnerved, but decide to let it pass without comment, leaving just one disheveled person cracking up while sitting down on the cube. I decide on the former course.

I wonder about the etymology of 'cracking up', and picture the top of a popcorn seed opening to reveal a green and white shoot that climbs up through the rich brown soil.

Anyway.

Two hours, two blocks, two people meet. I've had lunch, and lunch is an hour, so that leaves one hour for one and 4/5ths block. I window shop:

A mini gourd megastore – fresh, dried, painted plain, albino, serene, horrible, tiny, huge, squishy, rattly, psychic, mobile, potted. Gourd-cooking classes Monday, gourd music Tuesday, gourd history Wednesday, gourdomancy Thursday, gourd appreciation Friday, Saturdays off, gourd grief Sunday. Too crowded – next:

A general store. Unpackaged stuff piled up here and there, most of it looking simultaneously very useful and vaguely disturbing, or vaguely useful and very disturbing.

All Things Poodle!, featuring poodle brains, poodle livers, poodle furs, poodle pets, poodle piddle, ...

A dirty little corner grocery, featuring carbohydrates and paper products and a shop owner on guard against shoplifters.

Now there's a street to cross. I could mention the bumper-to-bumper slow-moving cars, creeping along away from the sun, and the equally crowded other lane full of naked freshly bathed people creeping along toward the sun, and i did. I don't see any easy way to cross so i cross anyway, getting snorfled by cars and moistened by people in the process. Bath oil – for when you're feeling squeaky clean.

Someday i'll have to slide down a column of all the fish i've ever eaten.

On this block, most everything is boarded up, so the window shopping consists of glimpses of different flavors of darkness behind cracked and dirty windows. Most of them taste dangerous, tho not sinister. I reach the museum.

The Dyslandia Gelatin Museum. I fill out a marketing survey and get my free ticket. A colorful, slightly-springy walkway with fruit floating in it leads to a jiggling hallway, but i sit on a bouncy bench and wait for the 2 hour mark. There's no sunlight inside, so i have to use an artificial light for my sundial. That's probably not nearly as accurate, but there's only so much effort you want to put into meeting a voice from a toy telephone.

At about the right time, a small nervous bald red-bearded man in drab green clothes and matching red sneakers and two arms and two legs and one hand and two feet walks in.

He flashes a badge or pass at the booth and enters without filling out a marketing survey. Maybe he has a season pass.

My bench jiggles slightly as he walks toward it; he stops and quickly glances away from me. I decide to wait until the tour starts to introduce myself.

The tour guide rolls up to us, motions for us to follow. We do so, holding on to the rubbery handrails and stepping carefully. The guide stops, silently contemplating a single motionless lime cube on a small dull dish. There's no label or explanation. After a bit, we move on: A simple bowl of some red flavor; A multifaceted mold arranged with the raw materials of a pitcher of water and a pile of powder. There's still no word from the guide, which normally i would appreciate but which is inconvenient when you want to have noise to mask a private conversation. I wait until we finish with some photographs of whipped-cream and start to move again, then introduce myself to the drab-green bearded person.

“Uh. hi.”

He looks at me nervously, then looks away.

“I'm, ah... you can call me 'Span'.”

He starts looking like he wants to run away, but doesn't want to risk it on the bouncy surface and without the ok of the tour guide.

“It's about the 'O' word.”

He sighs with relief, then mutters “'Span'... funny name.”

I say nothing.

“Spaniard... spanakopita... spank...”

I say nothing.

“The 'O' word, eh?”

I nod.

“And what exactly is the 'O' word?”

“Um. I don't know. It's just what the other you told me i should tell you.”

“Oh.”

We both stop abruptly behind the tour guide, captivated by a huge gleaming silent swirl of motion – a fantastically complicated device which is taking raw materials in on one side via ducts and belts and scoopers and hoses and grabbers, and sending out the other end a steady stream of of unique decorated gelatin creations – sculptures, figures, towers, igloos, airplanes, equations, feet...

The guide moves on. We blink, and follow.

“'O' word,” he says, rubbing his chin. “Omicron... Osiris... ought...”

The guide stops us at a wax figurine of a 50's housewife, smiling in a yellow apron and holding up a box of gelatin mix, but kneeling on a bearskin rug. The guide looks at us and speaks:

“My glums is swollen.”

I ponder whether this might be an explanation for the silent nature of the tour, or if maybe it's part of the current exhibit. The guide stares at us both briefly, then rolls through a door marked “Employees Only”, leaving us with the smiling housewife. She smiles.

“Odd that the other me knew I'd be here today – I try to pick things at random. I don't know what you have to do with anything but I guess he knows what he's about.”

“He said it was imperative that we meet and talk. Didn't say what about – sounded like someone was after him or something and he had to hang up.”

“Oh dear. Oh dear.”

The waiter fusses with the tea, and then pours some. I sip. Too much waiting-food. Enough waiting food to feed a small army. But childhood programming tells me i can't waste it. But bitter experience tells me i'll ruin my appetite for the actual food.

I'm spared by the appearance of a small army, two, two and a half inches tall, materializing on one side of my sphere of metal threads. They're speakless, but motion for me to help, and i get down some chips and cornbread for them, crumbling small enough to be manageable for them. Some congregate around the salsa trough and dip their corn chips in to moisten them.

They look tired. I don't ask them about the relative sizes of the molecules in their bodies and those in the food they're eating and air they're breathing. When you're a small tired army materializing on some table and trying to eat, chances are you'd be in no mood to discuss molecules and photons bouncemitting for me to see them and other physics difficulties. These things take care of themselves, and you might not like the answer anyway.

I don't ask where they're from, what they're fighting, and if they've had any casualties. I don't see any injuries. They don't answer that when the enemy gets you, it tends to not leave much behind to be injured.

The waiter brings me a little saucer and i pour some water for them to dip their canteens and splash their faces. Son they head back into the metal thread sphere, marching around the perimeter of the table and entering the other side.

My sandwich arrives. Frilly toothpicks.

How should i shop? I observe the other patrons:

A tall skinny white left-handed short-brown-haired post-teen with no piercings and no scars but torn complicated clothing and semi-full lips and narrow cheeks and tall forehead and no cosmetics and hazel eyes and sandals and not much facial or other expressions and ambiguous gender and so forth is introverting around a display of obsolete toy horses. They can't walk or neigh. I introvert around some things, furtively observing the next patron:

An erect poodle with prehensile fingers and no fur and a variety of tattoos and no clothing but with a purse or bag of green faux-leather is forming shapes in a deep red drawing pool – little human faces in various expressions, silhouettes, each fading after a few minutes. Its expression is unreadable to me. When its finger traces out my profile in the pool i turn away. Who else to observe?

A medium-height magenta-mottled middle-aged bald man with no glasses mingles his fingers with the waters of the silverfish tank. Other than that he appears to be asleep.

The patrons do not seem to be a talkative bunch. I should shop with a neutral expression and with various untalkative characteristics. I wonder if that's bad for the fish.

A plastic telephone next to me rings. It rings. It rings. The tall skinny etc post-teen gives me an annoyed look; i answer the phone: “Hello?”

“I need to meet you – what's your name? – never mind I'll just call you Spanakopita – ”

“uh...”

“ – okay Span here's the plan in two hours I'll meet you at the gelatin museum (that's two blocks up) and we can talk on the tour. I won't know you so you'll have to introduce yourself and convince me to go with you – tell me it's about the 'O' word if I hesitate and try not to look too freaky or you might scare me off and it's of paramount importance that we – shit, they're coming...” The phone clicked, then fell silent.

Two blocks in two hours. One block per hour.

On the one hand, perhaps I should not follow the instructions of mysterious voices coming from plastic toy phones. On the other hand, i did chose to go down this street, and i should meet the responsibilities inherent in such a choice so i can look my grandchildren in the eye many years from now while lecturing them on personal responsibility.

When is two hours. When is now? I dig through a bin: Mickey-Mouse watch with one bent arm; egg timer; hourglass – tempting, but you have to pay attention; electromechanical clock with a steel ball that rolls along and flips numbers, no batteries; hour-candles with matching matches; magic flute, marked “as is – frequently sleeps in”. Then at the bottom, a sundial.

Anything else? I glance around – Loch Lemon pie mix; prim-mouthed rag dolls; tiny life-like metal figurines, of dogs and people and various alien or unfamiliar species, tapeworms and viruses and giraffes and sponges, Neanderthals and black widows and coelacanths and lemmings, squat and tall scary things, Venus fly traps and Venus flies, tortoises and porpoises and blue whales and Portuguese men-of-war, lemurs and trilobites and a crystalline heap, mud sharks and a spherical haze of finely spun metal threads. I take that one, wondering what the metal is, and approach the register.

Behind the register is the greasy unkempt top of a head. I drop my sphere and sundial on the counter a little louder than necessary.

“Hold on!” The head ducks down out of sight. Gurgling sounds, then swishing, then faint roaring, all for several minutes. I hold on.

The top of kempt and silky-soft head is visible behind the register. A pale arm reaches up and pushes the keys of the mechanical register, then pulls a lever. Numbers spin, settle: 030. I hesitate, then hand over a credit card.

A voice mumbles beneath the hair, “Titanium yeh... Olympium... Godsium... Brahmium... Coyoteum... ehm.”

The card reappears without any swiping noises. A receipt joins it:

    2.    030

I peer out the door – up – down – across – around – no snickering porpoise. I cross the street and sit at a small rickety table outside a food and beverageary. Nobody appears, once, then several times. My sundial is set to 'now'. I turn it slightly forward and the world grows bright and hazy, swift-moving indistinct forms appearing and disappearing. The sundial ticks down slowly to the 'now' setting like an egg timer, then dings. A waiter is waiting.

I wait. He waits. I request a menu. He nods toward a rack by the door that has several.

Freeway.

Hours later, motel. Loneliness begins. No cats, dogs, pigs, ferrets, parrots, or goldfish come with the room. Nothing moves in the room. No future closest friend or sexually adventurous world traveler notices me and knocks on my door. Three packets of sugar, instant burnt bean water, bucket for ice. Musty smell, menacing remote control on a cable. Still, nothing moves. Two non-paintings hang, more lifeless than the room? The TV doesn't move, but i can feel it, the only dead thing that might come to some form of life. I should probably do something. But rest... just for a moment... and i dream

        Someone who is this person
        Then is that person

        Says things
        In this place
        Which is also that place

I've never flown in a dream.

I wake surrounded by giant toes, standing on all sides of the bed. How much would toe socks cost for those? Can't find toe socks for men, probably would have to make custom tailored socks for these giant fellers. Might prefer being bare though.

I wake floating on an infinite sea, a mirror of the sea and me above. We stare at us, then avert our eyes. Where does the light come from? Maybe a horse galloping atop the sea would bump its head against its mirror self.

Just deep enough for the toes of mirror me to touch mine as we stop floating and start walking through the water. It's strange to be your own surface, soft and firm skin to walk on under the water.

I wake. My tendons hurt.

Motel phone book, large city: Gardening... Furnace.. Electric... Escort Services. Full page ads. How do they get away with this legally? What would murder for hire be listed under? Weapons contractors? What else... Identity Services, Drug Consultants, Retribution Therapists, Found Objects, Records Adjustments, Information Retrieval, Freedom Services.

I am not a hawk-rabbit, lying in wait for a hawk to scream down with talons outstretched, then jumping and kicking when the hawk can no longer escape. There is no bewildered instant of predator realizing something has gone wrong.

I stand and throw the rock in my hand, and it doesn't become a hawk tumbling down on the logging road, feathers torn and dusty. It hasn't rained for a while.

I don't see any blackberries as i walk, and no blackberries i think see me, tens or thousands of eyes gaging my distance from them. Fish would have to be small to school together enough to have that many eyes following me, gliding through the air silently and turning as if one. Blackberries can watch more efficiently, but so little mobility.

Clumsy walk down the road, scattering stones, no silent quantum transition to ever lower locations on the hill, no guardian spirit moving with native alacrity. My shoes get dusty.

I reach my car. It's not a hemispherical bubble, twenty feet in diameter, inertial dampers obviating the need for seat belts or other restraints as it lifts and glides smoothly in a slow spiral, forest and sky silently orbiting the axis of travel. No wings for gremlins to catch hold of and monkey with, or gremlin with.

No companions sit on the soft cushions, watching through the ceiling or floor, or mixing a juice at the kitchen island, or napping with the sunlight slowly reaching around their relaxed features. We don't follow the river to its source, just above its surface, or float in the belly of a cloud.

I try not to ride the brakes too much as i descend the logging road to get back on the highway. No borders are crossed, no military bases or units avoided as orphans of war are located by the intensity of their unmet needs, offered a ride to a new life by the computer's voice in their native language. No distrustful stares, wide eyes, hesitation about sitting with dirty clothes and limbs on the seats, talk and introductions with the other children, fear or wonder or suspicion when the landscape starts moving through the glass, eager taking of food and drink, and then with the last passenger on board, swift passage out over the ocean to reach an artificial island nation or submerged colony. No orientation, medical checkup, strange children and adults with different skins and eyes and bodies and languages and clothings and habits. No future forged together, no weeping to return to a lost home. No therapy groups, rivalries, breaking up of gangs, or matching psychological profiles to form cohesive threads of friendship, a common language emerging. I reach the highway, across from a red roadside bar that i can't imagine ever entering. I turn onto the highway.

Flizzith esperatha nel ibith de—zaitgumila bah delipiliah nefet distilethp, de zii maad ilpithsh glebritoriant ebath. Fane beltr sim elak nith zynne.


Amaranth – 3 kibblers
Bauxite – 4 pills
Dalek – 1 bottle
Leitmotif – backordered
Spinach – potted, 3
Ineffable – to taste
Benzene – 3 rings per
Crawlers – 20 trays, or 16 if mixed w/creepers
Saline nasal spray – one per table enough?
Extra scrubs & dolls


Watch carefully — if the ambassador spews his creamed corn to the left, he may be leaning toward their alternative, and i'll need you to–wait, something is coming– -=DISCONNECT=-


Please. My doggie does not appreciate this. Please remove your fingers. I will not negotiate on this point. No. I will give you exactly five minutes to remove your fingers before I will be forced to take appropriate measures to preserve my doggie's equanimity.