The Void

                Jerry stepped into the empty void. Although as it was an empty void, he wasn’t exactly sure that he had stepped into it. He only knew that where he was before wasn’t where he was now. The now he was in was empty and more void-like than the clearly crowded place he’d been. So, he had to guess that he was now in the void. His sneakers squeaked as he walked forward across the floor of the void, which struck Jerry as odd that a void would have such a nicely polished white marble floor.  He wondered if there was a custodial staff that came into the void with a floor buffer and buffed the floors to such a degree that they appeared to not exist.

                His squeaking sneakers echoed through the void as he walked forward. If a void could have any direction that is. Jerry only assumed he was moving forward, but without any sign posts or road markers of any kind he couldn’t be sure if he was just marching in place or actually moving. He stopped walking and listened as the echoes of his squeaks drifted all through the void until they dissipated.  “An endless void that appears to have no end”, thought Jerry.  He remembered the stories he read as a kid about those cruel overlords of medieval myth that would hurl brave knights into bottomless pits. Even then he had his doubts about a truly bottomless pit. He couldn’t help but wonder about the construction of a bottomless pit. Did workers go into a bottomless pit never to return. They would kiss the wife and kids good-bye and go down there with their hard hats or candles on their heads, and just disappear. “Would the general contractor go down there or would he stay behind with the evil overlord so the invoice could get paid? How would they know when they were done with the bottomless pit,” wondered Jerry.

He shook his head and began his squeaking trek once more within the void.

                The void was bright but it didn’t appear to have any external light source to Jerry. He couldn’t figure out how it was so magnificently bright in the void. He remembered reading about how the human eye perceived light and color and how it’s interpreted by the brain. He thought it could be dark as pitch in the void, but his brain was just interpreting it as bright. He had way too many questions about the void. He never actually thought he’d get this far into the void since up until the moment he stepped into it; it hadn’t existed. Jerry wished his sneakers weren’t so loud. He wondered if the squeaking rubber sound bouncing through the void was ruining the actual void experience. He thought about how the sound might be causing the void to have more structure since it may be reflecting the sound and therefore giving it shape.

                Jerry stopped walking again and looked down at his sneakers as the Doppler echoes of his noisy footfalls faded. He bent over and un-tied his shoe laces. He stretched his sock feet and toes out as he removed the tight-fitting sneakers. The white marble floor was cold underfoot. It wasn’t cold enough to make Jerry shiver or react harshly. He put his sock foot onto the white marble and the sneaker vanished behind him. The void then consumed his other sneaker as he stepped out of it. They vanished without a squeak.

                Jerry started with what he perceived to be walking forward again. Each socked foot stepping silently onto the white void floor. The squeak was gone forever; replaced with a hushed sock-footed shuffle. Jerry was pleased to remove the annoying squeak from the void. It made the void seem far more void-like than it was before. He never imagined he’d be complaining about the noisiness of a void or feel happy now that the void was quieter.

                The white marble never varied in its slope, pitch, texture or smoothness. It kept expanding in front of Jerry as he walked/sock-footed shuffled. He remembered when he was a kid in his grandparent’s house and they had a lot of highly polished wood floors throughout the home. His grandmother was something of a dirt and dust eradicator. She spent the majority of her later years seemingly washing, moping, dusting and then all over again. In some constant struggle against the micro universe of dirt and dust in which she eventually lost, herself turning into the very substance she spent so much time sweeping and mopping away. The floors in the home were ice rink smooth though. Jerry could get a running start in his sock feet and practically slide from one end of the house to the other on the polished wooden floors.

                He felt like he could do that now on the void floor. He wondered if he did get a running start how far he could slide. Physics always slowed him down at his grandparent’s home. He didn’t know if those same rules applied to the void. He grew concerned as the idea of sliding endlessly through all time in his sock feet might end up being more of an embarrassment than a joy. He worried that he might see someone else in the void and he’d be unable to stop sliding in his sock feet to say hi. Jerry worried he’d just zoom on by; never knowing whom the other void dweller was.

                Jerry decided he wouldn’t do a full running start slide, but just a sort of one-foot slide so he could keep some control and stop if he had to. It would be like riding a skateboard but never bringing your left foot up onto the skateboard and just cruise along. He wanted some level of control in the void. Plus he could stop if he wanted to say hi to whomever or whatever he may come across in the void. If there was anything to come across.

                The void kept going on in all directions, as Jerry thought it probably should. It being a void it had to be both infinite and incredibly small while being expansive and all consuming all at the same time. He’d bet the other guys at the bar he could get into the void. He said that if he could, he would, and he did. Jerry wondered how he would collect on the bet now that he was in void. He wondered if since he’d conjured the void, if he could unconjured it. If he did that would it cease to exist, meaning he’d then lose the bet because he’d unconjured it out of existence? He had to prove to the other bar guys that the void did exist in order to win. Jerry wondered if his sneakers would come back into existence or if they were now lost the void.

                Jerry kept sliding on his right foot. Pushing along with his left. Passing nothing. No passing of time. Just sliding in a hush. No echoes bouncing through the emptiness. Jerry couldn’t even hear his own heartbeat in his ears, of hear himself breathing heavy. He didn’t feel tired. He didn’t feel like he was working too hard to slide himself along the white marble floor. He wasn’t sweating.

Jerry wondered about his madness. Had he gone to far. Was he in the bottomless pit, forever digging down? Jerry stopped sliding and another silence came over the void. He peered into the perception of what was ahead. He squinted his eyes to try and see if there was anything to see.

More endless white marble floors.  Jerry realized he’d never looked behind himself. Not even once the whole time he’d been in the void. He felt scared for the first time. He felt like something was behind him. A terror lurking at the rear. Was something else behind him in the void and he’d missed it. He was too worried about nothingness to be concerned with everything behind him. If there was anything behind him at all.

                Jerry shut his eyes and started to turn his head over his shoulder. He suddenly felt sweat on his forehead and a weakness in his legs. He was breathing heavy now. He was thirsty. So thirsty. He got his head positioned over his left shoulder. He was shaking.

                He opened his eyes.

The Morlocks were Right

“Maybe the Morlocks were onto something,” said Lawrence. He flipped through the TV stations. At each flip of the channel, each News program described the chaos, death and vast troubles of a crumbling world. He thought about H. G. Wells as the TV screen images changed from commentator to violence, to political unrest, to plague stories, back to a commentator.

H.G. Wells envisioned a race of underground dwellers, The Morlocks, who survived by eating the surface-dwelling Eloi in his book, The Time Machine.  The Eloi were human cattle, bred purely to sustain the Morlocks while the Morlocks ran all the underground infrastructure, machinery and crop production.

The Eloi were Human. The Morlocks were once Human. Humanity split in two through tragedy, necessity and chaos. Of course, that tragedy was nuclear war. Still, the chaos was familiar, for Lawrence anyway. He looked at the bag of Cool Ranch potato chips to his left and wondered if it would be funny if it read, “Eloi Chips – Now more Ranch!”

                Lawrence closed the bag of chips and stood up from his sofa. He stretched his arms up toward the ceiling. “I’ve been sitting too long,” he said to the empty room. His back felt cramped and sore from all the sitting he’d been doing. He wasn’t exactly a pro athlete but he wasn’t completely out of shape. Shape being a relative term as far as he believed.

                He walked from his living room to the kitchen and put the potato chips away in the cupboard and looked out his kitchen window. Trees were rustling in the summer breeze, someone in the neighborhood was mowing their lawn and the growling law mower echoed through the houses. It was such a contrast to the fires and plagues reported on the news to the near idyllic peacefulness of Lawrence’s neighborhood. A bird flew past the window, flirting for another bird it seems. Performing acrobatic stunts in great loops before landing back in the tree, next to its object of affection. Seemed so normal to Lawrence.

                “How can the world be crumbling with all this beauty around,” asked Lawrence.

                He went to his refrigerator, felt the coolness on his legs, grabbed a cold beer. He opened it and took a long refreshing sip. He tossed the bottle cap toward his garbage can.  Lawrence looked at the pile of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and considered washing them. It would only take a few moments to do. Yet, he resisted. It seemed like such a mundane task at the edge of the end of the world.  

                “Would the Morlocks do the dishes, or would that be an Eloi task,” wondered Lawrence. Most of what he remembered about The Time Machine story was from the 1960 film adaptation. He’d seen it when he was a kid and remembered falling in love with Yvette Mimieux. She played the beautiful Eloi named Weena. Lawrence was hooked on blondes ever since. He had read the book at some point after seeing the movie, but the movie imagery stuck with him far more than the book did.

                “I think the Eloi were too dumb to do dishes,” said Lawrence, “they didn’t know anything about the world. The Morlocks provided them with everything. Yeah, I guess dishes were a Morlock task.”

                Lawrence put his beer on the counter next to the sink and turned the faucet on. He got the dish soap and squirted it all over the pile of dishes. Lemon scented soap filled the air and a few small bubbles floated up. Lawrence popped them.  He took another sip of his beer as the sink filled with soapy water.

“If only the world could be cleaned up as easily,” thought Lawrence.  He grabbed the sponge and began.

The Emporium of New Orleans

I stumbled in from off the

crazy Mardi Gras street,

covered in glitter, beads

and reeking of copious amounts

of booze. An old bell clanged

over my head as I entered.

“Welcome to the Emporium,” said

the old man behind the large

wooden counter.

“Sorry, I just needed to catch my

breath from all the craziness on the

streets. Too much crazy,” I said.

“That’s fine young man, fine,” said the

old man, “plenty of others have done

the exact same. Feel free to browse

while you regain your composure.”

He puffed on a large pipe as he leaned

against the large weathered counter.

“Say, what do you sell in here,” I asked.

“Oh, we’ve got it all. It’s an Emporium

after all,” said the old man.

He did not look up from the faded

newspaper on the counter.

“Everything, you say,” I asked.

“Mm-hm,” said the old man.

I scanned the various shelves,

cluttered with all kinds of curious

and odd collectibles. Antique dolls,

sepia toned framed photos, jars of

yellowed liquids, taxidermy owls,

rodents and squirrels. A giant

moose head on the wall, wearing

a Mardi Gras crown.

“Sure does look like everything,” I said.

I wiped some glitter from the corner of

my cheek. “But have you got anything

for this depression I’ve been going through,”

I asked, thinking myself quite the smarty.

“Sure we do, we’ve got it all. Just step right

back into our parlor there and

your depression will melt away

like chocolate on a hot fudge

Sundae.”

I gave the man a glance, askew.

“It’s true young man, we’ve got

it all,” smiled the old man.

“A parlor to cure my depression,

I’ve have to say, I have my doubts.”

I said.

“Sure, sure,” said the old man, “it’s

not too hard at all. Just step though

that doorway there, let the noise of

Mardi Gras fade behind you and in no

time at all, your depression will have

equally faded.”

“Just through these doors,” I asked.

“Just through that doorway young man,” he said.

He pointed with his pipe.

I adjusted the beads around my neck and

stepped through the doorway, leading down

a long corridor. I could no longer

hear the sounds of revelry on the street.

I wondered if this could be true, could this

unbearable sadness that’s been weighing me

down be lifted through this simple magical

New Orleans store, this Emporium.

I came to a door and gave it a knock,

there was no answer so I gave the knob

a turn.

The door opened up, into an alley, behind

the store. There was no parlor. The noise

of the citywide party echoed off the tall brick

walls in the alley.

I put my hands on my hips and looked back

at the door I have exited through. It shut

hard behind me. 

I started to laugh. The laughter swelled

up from my stomach and I held

my belly as I chuckled.

My chuckle became a deep laugh

as I burst out in an uncontrollable fit

of riotous cackling.    

There were hysterical tears weeping

from the corners of my eyes and

for once I felt like a true fool,

and not the fool I thought I was.

This made my chuckle even harder

until I was sitting on the cobbled alley

surface. Smiling.

I was joy for a moment.

I wasn’t sad.

I was just there, laughing in an alley,

and nothing seemed wrong

about any of it.

Let's Get a Drink

                She placed her wine glass on the bar as she stared into the depths of her cell phone. Her face was washed in the blue light of her phone. Her thumbs sliding up and down over the small screen in a blur. She was not interested in the bar room nonsense around her. The jukebox playing too loud. The random sports ball game on the overhead TV’s.  She was focused entirely on the small screen in front of her scanning eyes.

                Her loose hair was drooped down the sides of her face, concealing her full visage from my view. Which was likely for the best since I was already starting to feel like a creep for watching her. I’d watched her since she confidently strode in and took a seat at the bar. She quickly ordered her white wine from the bartender and almost immediately dove into her phone. She’d barely put her small purse down. I had thought to say something to her, but decided better of it. It seemed rude to now try and interrupt her. She was there to do her thing and I could see that I would be a bother if I tried to speak with her. I knew to respect her space. Even if that space was eyeball deep in a flurry of text messages.

                The bartender looked at her and then at me. He raised an eyebrow. I shook my head as if to say, “No, not this one.” He understood. I pointed to my near empty bottle of beer. He nodded again and dug out a fresh bottle from the cooler. He opened it and placed it in front of me. I kept my unfinished beer in my hand. I had to get every last drop otherwise it seemed like I was getting cheated. I never let the bartenders take my bottle until it was completely empty. The bottom is where the good stuff is.

I saw the flash of her arm as she reached in front of her for her wine glass. She snatched it off the bar top and took a quick, tight lipped sip. She put the glass back down in front of her. Her eyes never left her phone screen. I looked at her. White sweater, nice but not too dressy, tight jeans but again, not too dressy. Her dark hair seemed black in the diminished lighting of the bar and in the silhouette of her glowing phone screen. It could have been brown. She wore the ubiquitous tan boots of the day. They looked new. She wore a few rings on her left hand, same with her right. None of them looked like a wedding band, but then, I’ve been fooled before. Her look was a mixture of serious but fun, of someone who seemed like they could go out all night or go home early and be comfortable in their clothes.  I thought that was admirable. I never know what to wear or when to go home.

I looked around the bar for anything else to catch my eyes. I was actively seeking something, anything, to keep from being bored to tears with how mundane I had let things become. I wasn’t craving adventure or something obnoxious, but something at least interesting. Something to break up the monotony of thought. The talking to myself every night in my small apartment had started to gnaw at me. I was answering too often and marveling at my own incredible insights into the vast wasteland of bachelorhood. Some days it seemed like I talked to myself more then I spoke with other people.

The bar was dead, except for myself, the bartender and the woman. Yet, the jukebox was still too loud for some reason. The music was that mix of unfamiliar and familiar, funky but electronic, and all too loud. I motioned to the bartender that perhaps the music was too loud for this small crowd. He nodded back, but didn’t change the volume. He only did a little hip thrusting dance, smiled and returned to drying the pint glasses. Which I didn’t understand as to why he was washing them since there were only two patrons and neither was using a pint glass. I politely smiled at his portly dance moves and took a final swig from my old beer bottle.

I looked at my own phone, to check the time. I thought about how everyone had pocket watches again, although less elaborate and with less winding involved. The night was still very early.
Hardly anything had happened yet. I didn’t know if it would.  I glanced over at the woman sitting on her stool. She’d put her phone down for a moment and was vacantly looking up at the TV screens as Orange jersey college team played Blue jersey college team. Her hand was draped gently around the stem of her wine glass as she tapped the side with a ring. She never turned her head.

Her phone lit up from the top of the bar. She scooped it up like it was prey and she was ravenous for a bloody kill. Her thumbs returned to their fury as she tapped away. I thought about her world. Or at least the world of space she was currently occupying. She was out in the world but not a part of it. She was present but not there at all. I at least felt like I was there, living in the moment. Even if the moment was boring as hell. It was raw, real and truthful. I was alone and no amount of phone interaction would change the present space I occupied.

 I took a sip of my new beer and motioned for the bartender.

“I think it’s whiskey o’clock,” I said.