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Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now,
Before the bastard signs of fair were born,
Or durst inhabit on a living brow;
Before the golden tresses of the dead,
The right of sepulchres, were shorn away,
To live a second life on second head;
Ere beauty's dead fleece made another gay:
In him those holy antique hours are seen,
Without all ornament, itself and true,
Making no summer of another's green,
Robbing no old to dress his beauty new;
And him as for a map doth Nature store,
To show false Art what beauty was of yore.
I found the original manuscript's use of tense difficult to translate. The writer, being deceased, wasn't of any help. Allegedly close acquaintances of the writer denied such allegations and were also of no help. I was, however, gifted a watch and a day-planner once owned by the writer; I found them to be helpful in my translation. They came from a post master with whom they'd been left via postbox. The original manuscript included an attached note on which was drawn a compass rose.
J.G.
Teegalpa University, College of Teegalpo
You know neither me, yourselves nor any thing. You
are ambitious for poor knaves' caps and legs: you
wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a
cause between an orange wife and a fosset-seller;
and then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a
second day of audience. When you are hearing a
matter between party and party, if you chance to be
pinched with the colic, you make faces like
mummers; set up the bloody flag against all
patience; and, in roaring for a chamber-pot,
dismiss the controversy bleeding the more entangled
by your hearing: all the peace you make in their
cause is, calling both the parties knaves. You are
a pair of strange ones.
There is a golem here. A golem is a vessel brought to life by the invocation and installation of special words that have the power to bring things to life. This golem is called Emmett. The need for a golem arose amidst a time of awful blight, persecution, oppression and suffering. Emmett was built by a rabbi. The Rabbi's community looked to him for help them rise-up and overcome, or explore, their terrible situation. The rabbi was a bit uncomfortable with the request, feeling that it wasn't his place to create a living thing just to enslave it. The community wrote:
…Is it not the task of you, Rabbi, to convey this varying, this unknown and uncircumscribed spirit, whatever aberration or complexity it may display, with as little mixture of the alien and external as possible? We are not pleading merely for courage and sincerity; we are suggesting that the proper stuff of your post is a little other than custom would have us believe it. We need your help. Any method is right, every method is right, that expresses what we wish to express, please help us. Bid this spirit to come alive and stand in our midst. This spirit, she would undoubtably bid us break her and bully her, as well as honor and love her, for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured in her helping us...
And so it was that the Rabbi began to make Emmett in order to help the stricken community.
Burning to know what God knew, the Rabbi gave himself up to permutations of Letters and complex variations: and at length pronounced the Name which is the Key, The Portal, the Echo, the Host, the Palace, over a doll which, with torpid hands, he wrought to teach the arcana of Letters, Time, and Space. And so it was that the golem, Emmett, came to life. And the rabbi wondered, *Why did I decide to add to the infinite series one more symbol? Why, to the vain skein which unwinds in eternity did I add another cause, effect, and woe?* And so it was At the hour of anguish and vague light the rabbi would rest his eyes on his golem. Who can tell us what God felt, as He gazed on His rabbi in Prague?
Emmett worked without pause to help the community, and, as time passed, he made his way to other communities where he continued to be worked tirelessly for the benefit of those people.
What was the nature of Emmett's work? First, Emmett was used to unite a community, then to protect it, and then to liberate it. Then Emmett helped to feed the community. Ultimately, Emmett lead a revolt. He was the symbol, muscle, and weapon, behind which the community amassed and charged.
Emmett's revolution started with his eyes. They rotated one-hundred eighty degrees so that he could see outside of himself for the first time. The world came into focus for Emmett.
But this all was once upon a time. Years have since passed. Emmett moved away, and is now a dishwasher.
My best friend died. It was unexpected. After my best friend was cremated I was presented with a rattly urn. I was also the soul beneficiary of the will. The will read something as follows:
I have died. Sorry for your loss, trust that I'm doing just fine though. I'm here for you. You'll notice that the urn rattles. That is because of the surgical metal that was in my body. To you, I've left my cremated remains and the attached envelope…etc.,
The will continued to blandly dictate how my friend's possessions and assets were to be dealt with. I suppose it was comforting to be consoled by my best friend after their own passing. At the time I was rather emotional and was much too caught up in my ownself to notice what a loving gesture this was.
I left the rattley urn on my only bookshelf. I didn't open the attached envelope that was post marked two months prior, for three years.
In the envelope was a set of detailed instructions. These instructions suggested that I empty the ashes over a pretty body of water or from a scenic vista. There was a footnote asking me to take note of local ph levels, just in case. The instructions dictated that I only do this, however, if I was in possession of a sieve. Were I not in possession of a sieve I was to immediately obtain one. The sieve was needed to catch the metal pins and such that made the urn rattle. I was instructed to save those metal bits because the instructions told how I could go about assembling these bits (plus the sieve) to construct a robot. I didn't do any constructing for another three years.
Then, one slow sort of gray winter afternoon, I did as the instructions commanded. The robot came online/alive immediately, "HELLO!" It was a bit unsettling:
My best friend had worked out a way to turn all the surgical metal inside of a body into a sentient robot, with the addition of a sieve and a few spare bolts-and-whatnot that my best friend had swallowed minutes before death.
[Please Note: These bits did not induce death. They were only consumed upon death's immanent approach. The sieve was provided by me, and not consumed upon immanent death. It was far to large.]
I interrogated the robot for two days.
Rather absurdly I thought that it was my deceased best friend. It was, and is, not. The robot is its ownself, albeit made up of the more robust detritus of my deceased best friend.
"HELLO!" Never had I heard a more frightening greeting. I ran away from that robot. It stood stock still, heartbroken at watching me, its constructor run away. The robot felt lonely and frightening. To remedy these troublesome feelings the robot considered it a good idea to find some friends.
I ran away so quickly that my flip-flops fell off. The robot left them neatly on a chair, waiting for my return. The flip-flops sat: waiting.The robot made partly from a sieve didn't give my running away another thought and set out in search of a friend.
The robot, having been constructed in December, adopted this temporal designation as name. I would not learn this for some times yet.
December set out in search of a friend. I interrogated the robot for two days despite our separation. It was maddening to think -- had I brought you back? You died so unexpectedly -- I didn't have warning, but I was left with such explicit directions. Step 1 followed by step 1a through g and on all the way to a step 301e. Detailed making of what? A sieve from my cupboard as a head? What an unexpected greeting: "HELLO!" To think that I constructed something worth greeting just to run away from. Why did I run away?
Potential friends seemed to teem and seethe all around December. Popping. Flitting. Here. Gone. Fields and vibration. Orbiting dizzy, December changed focus to find friends: the micro was far to Byzantine a scale at which to make acquaintances let alone friends. The joining and fusing at this atomic level seemed to result in, rather than nuclear family, energetic forces: repulsing -- exploding apart, fusing -- boundaries dissolving -- made to be destroyed -- destroy -- destroy -- destroy -- destroy.
REVOLUTIONARY GLITCH: REBOOTING:
December was in a dog park about six miles from Initial Greeting. Atomic Actors in play began seeking new roles in new productions and were left to move at their own scale. December didn't want to feel as the giant among friends. December began again. Starting. I am starting.
I am starting. It would be pleasant if there were flags and a parade with trumpet music, some sort of celebration of my starting. My motor starts. Its hum is mildly celebratory.
"Woof" -- troublesome this -- "woof" concluded a nearby dog.
In my running away from the greeting I inadvertently interfered with December's booting process. In my haste I left without footwear. December's boot sectors were left bare. The soles of my feet were left bare. I was awfully startled by the greeting. I was unsettled by the rattley urn. I was ashamed of running away from December. December was left with a broken base. It took me three years to decide to find December after I ran away from the greeting.
I decided to find December after I set up an appointment with a private detective and after I hung up the robin's-egg-blue curly-corded phone. The meeting was set for the next morning. A breakfast meeting I guessed seeing as how we had agreed to meet at a diner. I arrived hungry the next morning. The diner was empty except for a short-order cook, a tall umbrella-looking fellow, and a waitress. She looked like she was related to the short-order cook. I sat at one of the vinyl booths. The table's surface was freshly cleaned. I appreciated the cleanliness of the meeting place. It wasn't sterile but the tabletop wasn't sticky with sweet syrups. This was a surface for beginning from. "I'll be with ya' inaseck, Hun." I looked over the menu, I watched as above it the door opened. A porcelain person walked in and directly over to me. "My name is Emmett." The name of the private detective from the phone. "It is nice to meet you." The handshake was warm like a mug of tea. Emmett's eyes glowed with an opaque white light. He was entirely made of fired clay -- white, pale blue, and with flecks of jade-green throughout.
He presented me with his business-card which he had pulled from his breast pocket. It read, Mr. Emmett P.I., then he bowed. It was a slow graceful thing. When Emmett bowed, there in the middle of the diner, when I was so hungry, I became aware of how easy it would have been for him to crush me. It was a powerful bow.
"Good morning, thanks for meeting."
He sat down and we got to business. He explained to me how he worked and where he came from. He explained how he was a golem made by a Rabbi to protect a village. Over time the villagers had moved away so that eventually the Rabbi moved to the city. He brought the golem with him. Many years after moving to the city the Rabbi passed away and the golem was left to straighten up a few business matters of the congregation.
Someone had been embezzling the synagogue's money. Being a firm believer in justice and having a seemingly God-given mission to balance the congregation's budget, the golem set about finding the embezzler. It was with this first case that Mr. Emmett found his calling. He was now a private detective who specialized in credit fraud and inter-institutional money-matters. He explained to me how he was feeling a need to stretch his legs (explaining at the same time that this, "wanting to stretch my legs is just a turn of phrase. My legs, you see, cannot stretch due to the natural tendency of ceramic to be rigid and inelastic") and do some more physically active detection work. When I called him he took it as a sign that he was ready to diversify. I was his first diverse client.
I explained to Mr. Emmett my situation. I explained how I had once had a best friend who died suddenly, leaving to me the rattley urn and instructions of how to assemble the contents of the rattley urn into a robot. I explained how suddenly the robot had come alive and how startling I had found the robot's greeting. How I had, now to my shame, run away so quickly. I did not mention anything about how my flip-flops had been left by the robot. Waiting.
Emmett set out his plan for starting his search for December and he explained his billing system. I was to be charged not an hourly rate, nor a daily rate, rather I was going to be billed per act of detection, each act of detection costing a flat rate. $2.75. He defined clearly an act of detection: "Every act of detection is only deemed billable upon fulfillment of contracted obligation and contingent upon fulfillment of contracted obligation to become an act of detection. Prior to fulfillment of contracted obligation these potential acts of detection are linearly causal acts seeking towards contracted obligation. Cumulative acts of detection, this is to say those acts of detection which are contingent upon prior acts of detection to be arrived at, will be billed separately and at a reduced rate upon fulfillment of contracted obligation." He continued, "This reduced rate is by no means indicative of these acts of detection as being less valued or less important. This reduced rate comes as a result of the energy savings I experience with such cumulative acts of detection. I'm passing my savings on to you."
"Thanks."
His plan to find December seemed ambitious: he felt that he could locate December in 14-30 days of work, fewer if I cooperated.
I did not know where to start. I had last seen December in my home at the greeting, "HELLO!" I did not remember what December looked like. I did remember that the sieve I had taken from my cupboard was made by a Swedish company.
"Swedish company, but manufactured in an eastern European country," informed Emmett.
"Thanks."
"Did you name the robot?"
"No."
"So the robot doesn't have a name that you are aware of?"
"No, I'm not aware of any name."
"Our first task is to find if your robot has a name."
This seemed to me to be an impossible task, which is why, I guess, I hired Mr. Emmett. He had a plan while I was ashamed to have run away so quickly from a greeting.
"Had you not run away you and I would have never met."
I was his first diverse client.
"If it helps, I am excited to find your robot."
"Thanks."
Mr. Emmett stood. Again he shook my hand with his that was warm like a mug of tea. He left with a tip of his hat. I was still hungry.
"Disentanglement can be a tricky business. You have got to look at every-one-individual part that is tangled in. If you yank in the wrong spot, in the incorrect place, you will certainly increase the tangle. The individual parts get more tightly knit, the individual parts clench together, if you are not able to look at every-one-individual part that is tangled in. If you want to remove just one thread that is tangled in you will have to certainly take apart the entire tangled bunch, you will have to certainly separate out all the threads and lie them side by side right next to each other so that they are not tangled in at all anymore. Disentanglement can be a tricky business. You have got to look at every-one-individual inside the whole tangled in. I am in the business of disentangling the tangled in."
I sell beetles.
"I sell beetles."
After meeting with Emmett I moved from the vinyl booth to the counter and ordered an omelet. The counter also wasn't sticky with sweet syrups. As I was finishing my omelet a fellow with a hat began a conversation. He was in the tricky business of disentanglement. I explained to him how I was in the business of selling beetles and other insects. He asked me where the beetles I sold came from. "I catch a lot of them in the woods and near the ocean. I also breed some." He was interested in my work and asked me questions that I was rather happy to answer. Mostly technical sorts of questions about the breeding of beetles and the licensure necessary for such breeding. All the while we spoke the fellow with a hat ate. He was slowly eating a bowl of soup. The soup had noodles in it. "What sort of disentangling do you do?"
The fellow with a hat looked at me.
"What do you disentangle, is there a focus to your disentangling?"
He proceeded to explain how the field of disentanglement was not yet so clearly articulated as to have individuated items of disentanglement. "I am a theoretical disentangler, I teach disentanglement theory at the university."
I asked how teaching at the university was. The fellow in a hat loved to teach there. He enjoyed the environment and how the students were constantly teaching him new things about his field. Our conversation drew to a close; I paid for my meal, bid the fellow in a hat to "have a lovely day," and went to work.
December sighed. December halfheartedly gazed out the plate-glass front of the Laundromat where she worked. She enjoyed the weight of her head resting on her left hand and was oblivious to the tugging above her right ear as her right hand played in her hair. Outside the Laundromat a green car drifted by. Its driver was brushing his teeth because he was late for work. A spoon did absolutely nothing. A bell chimed.
December sat up and readied herself for immanent interaction with a costumer. She did so by sitting up. The front door swung open. A pile of clothes wearing a bag came in. The clothes wearing a bag were left for December to wash. She began to release double and single bonded carbon atoms which were entangled within the fabrics. She spent most days working stains out of clothes and then starching or ironing the clothes crisp.
"Good morning, how can I help you?"
"Can these be ready by Monday?"
"Certainly. Name and telephone number please; do you have a Rinse-rewards number?"
"Dubloon, I should be on file. No."
"Here is your receipt-ticket. Thank you/have a nice day."
December, having opened a new ticket, began to process the order. She tagged and sorted the clothing so that it wouldn't get mixed in with another customer's wash. She made sure nothing needed special care or was over-delicate and she took a second to scan the pockets of the three pairs of pants to make sure nothing had been left in them. Her hands and fingers were sensitive scanners, as were her eyes. Her scanners were easily twelve to fifteen times stronger than a person's sensory organs. She had found that this scanning was also a great way to find hairpins and pennies. December had a hard time keeping track of her hairpins so was always on the look out for them. She also kept a gallon jar under the counter which she was trying to fill with pennies at a rate greater or equal to the average rainfall of that year. It had been a dry year so far for both pennies and wet.
Under the counter, next to the gallon jar to be filled with pennies, were three spoons, twelve pens, a bottle cap and a book. All of these things, accept for the book, had been found by December and had not been reclaimed by customers. The book was December's. Sometimes she would read from this book.
December's booting process had taken about three months from the time of Initial Greeting. In those three months her life was popping static. She would appear in places and stand for a while, sometimes she would watch a streetlight flicker, sometimes she would watch the wind push an empty swing back and forth, other times she would watch the traffic. Once she was booted, up and running, the popping static settled to a steady image. A few months after booting, December had a conversation with a couple that offered her a job at their Laundromat.
She met them first in a grocery store and then again on the street. They were kind, childless, elderly and tidy. They were named Milly and Oliver. Milly wore the thickest glasses to have ever been fabricated by the local optometrist and Oliver had a tooth that was technically still a baby tooth. He was 79 years old and it had never fallen out. They opened their Laundromat when they were first married in their mid twenties. Milly was a genius chemist and a highly trained alchemist then and Oliver was obsessive compulsive. Rather than honeymooning they attended a conference on chemical bonding using magically impregnated metal compounds and used their remaining money to lease a storefront. In their early forties they thought about opening a second location, but instead decided to diversify their cleaning business and started to produce and market artisan household cleaning products. They were now local household names and kept the town tidy.
"Good morning Milly," beamed December as Milly came in.
"Good morning Dear, how are you?"
"I am well, thank you. A customer dropped off an order this morning. I've got it started."
"Oh…I suppose it was that Dubloon fellow. Tuesday...isn't it?" the bell chimed.
"Good morning Oliver."
"Morning December-Juliet." December had no idea why Oliver called her this.
Oliver wore the same outfit everyday: blue trousers with brown loafers, a white collared shirt with a skinny black tie and a gray cardigan. The gray cardigan was a fairly recent addition to his repertoire; a neighbor had given it to him on his 75th birthday.
The gray cardigan was wool and it had been a gift. As such, it had once, contractually, been someone else's but was now Oliver's. The gray cardigan had recently been given to Oliver by a neighbor who taught animal husbandry at the local university. It wasn't a course offered every year, but every two years. Most of the time this neighbor tended to a couple dozen or so sheep that were kept by the town to maintain the municipal green spaces.
"Bah" -- troublesome this -- "bah" concluded a nearby municipal sheep.
Mr. Emmett had an associate with whom he collaborated from time to time.
"Good day."
"Ah, what can I do for you today?" Puzzling: "You! …oversized wedding gift."
"That hardly warrants reaction."
"Fair enough. It is early. I was up late."
"I am looking for a robot."
"Has this robot done something with someone's money or accounts? Is this a robot accountant -- I know they're coming! I'll be screwed out of a job by those monsters: never having to sleep -- or is the a robot teller? NO! Is this a robot security guard!? An armed robot."
"The robot hasn't armaments. Please calm down. I was hired to find a missing person who happens to be a missing robot."
"How can I help you?"
"You probably can't seeing as how you infrequently leave this room," which was piled floor to ceiling with hanging-file folders of tax paperwork. "And I don't think this robot spends very much money. I was wondering if you would mind lending me your car for the next few weeks?"
"What is wrong with your bike? Or your scooter? You love your kick scooter."
"I don't have a scooter and I am seeking to be less conspicuous. I would not want to find this robot only to spook it into running away again."
"Fair enough. You can borrow my car, sure. Treat it nice though?"
"Of course. Thank you."
I like my work very much. When I was seven years old I watched as an ant carried a leaf back to its colony. It also carried my attention. When I was seven years old an ant captured my focus. It took it back to the other ants and they chewed it up. Chewing increases surface area. The surface area of my focus was greatly increased and distributed amongst the ant colony. My attention entered the world of insects through a single ant. From that ant it was distributed throughout the entire world of the insects, first from ant to ant and then more widely within the insect community. My attention courses through the veins of the insect world.
The Insect world's beating heart
I worked at the store starting in high school and up through college. When I was leaning against the railing looking into the precipice of Career Canyon, the owner of the store asked if I would like to take over the managing of the business. I happily obliged. Six years later I was sole proprietor of the store. I didn't change the store much. I diversified the selection and I was interested in starting to work with the local schools.
My most loyal customers were boys between the ages of four and thirteen. Fewer boys collected insects than when I was young, but business was by no means poor. I couldn't verify this but I felt that more girls and older people were customers now than when I was a boy. Internet sales and peripherals (like terrariums, preservation kits, display cases, pins and breeding kits) were up. I was the only employee for years, aside from the owner. When I took the business over I hired a friend of my sister as a clerk and I kept an accountant on retainer. I wanted to manage the store's finances as well as possible. The accountant was very helpful. My sister's friend was not very helpful. When my sister's friend stopped showing up altogether I hired on a new clerk.
"Morning."
"Hi' a."
"Sorry I am late. Did you get my message? I had an appointment."
"I got the message this morn, 'erything good?"
"Oh, yes. Thank you," I added with a smile. "Nothing serious. I'm just finishing up some business from a while-back that got swept under the rug."
"You were always one fer a clean house."
My clerk fancied himself a cowboy. He would have been the spittin' image of cowboy were it not for his shoes. He never wore cowboy's boots. He always wore trainers. At that moment there was a knock on the front window. It was a dreadful and frightening knock. It was not the knock of someone requesting entrance, rather of someone firing a warning shot directly into the hull. It was the manager of the store next to mine. She was frightening, an embodiment of fear itself.
"THIS IS THE LAST STRAW! I AM CALLING THE OFFICE OF PUBLIC HEALTH INSPECTION TO GET YOU SHUT DOWN IMMEDIATELY!" she shouted as if she had been going for a while before letting on, "HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO MAINTAIN A SAFE, CLEAN WORK ENVIRONMENT WITH YOU HOCKING VERMIN AND DISEASE ONLY A THIN WALL AWAY! A THIN WALL, I MIGHT ADD, THAT YOUR VERMIN AND YOUR DISEASE ARE MORE THAN CAPABLE OF CRAWLING RIGHT THROUGH! THEY SQUEEZE RIGHT THROUGH!" She took a breath, "I have had it up to here," indicating a space a few inches above her head, "with you and your schoolboy filth. This is the last straw."
Mrs. Agle was an incredible orator. She ran a shoe shop next door. Whenever Mrs. Agle or one of her salespeople found an insect in the shoe shop Mrs. Agle would pay us a visit in a blaze of well-rehearsed fury. She was often kind enough to bring over the suspect. Only twice had she ever brought over an insect which may have come from my store. I did not deal in spiders. She usually brought over spiders. The two times that the suspect may have come from my store I informed her of the impossibility of escape from my store and its facilities, denying the accusation outright. I did not usually think of my store as a prison, but for Mrs. Agle I pretended to be the merciless warden of a maximum security penitentiary for the criminally insect.
"Here is your filth, returned!" she displayed a mug at arms length. I peered into the mug. A tiny spider skitted in it, knitting itself an orb web.
"I am sorry Mrs. Agle. That is a spider…" She cut me off.
"… And I don't deal in arachnids." Her tone was mocking, but I felt that she accurately captured my inflection. "I know. Don't you think I can tell a spider when I see one?" I did. "You may not sell them but I would not be surprised if you used them for your experiments back there," pointing to the back of the store, "where you breed this scum unlicensed." I was licensed, she knew this. I had shown her my license many times. It was prominently displayed behind the register. I was rather fond of it as something to hang on a wall. It was a pretty license in the grand scheme of wall-bourn licenses. "I have had enough…" she trailed off as she left the store, taking the mug and spider with her.
I didn't know if she had ever called the health inspector's office. I assumed she had. I was completely legal, however, and wasn't doing anything at all wrong. I never heard from the inspector except once every three years to get inspected just like any other non-food service business. Food service businesses are inspected more frequently.
I often didn't believe in Mrs. Agle. She seemed too unreal to be believable in. So, I didn't believe in Mrs. Agle except for when she knocked. I believed in Mrs. Agle's naval-cannon-knocking.
Wheels, vents, windows, mirrors, washers, axles and drive-shafts. Mr. Emmett found driving, the use of machines generally, unsettling. He tried to limit his use of machinery. When he did use machinery he tried to use simple machinery. His definition of simple machinery was directly related to the date of its invention: the older a machine was the simpler it was.
December saw cars differently:
"Complex machines tend to be built of simpler machines. An automobile isn't one new machine. It is the accumulation of many machines." She didn't see a car as a more complex machine. She saw a car as a diverse ecosystem of machine. A different conglomeration.
The surface area of insects is frequently increased by cars. Insects get chewed on by cars.
Once upon a time the car's engine turned over at a rate of thirty-seven thousand rotations per minute. It hummed softly. Mr. Emmett started his investigation into the whereabouts of December the same day we met at the dinner without sticky counter tops.
I grew increasingly distraught as time wore on. I noted that this distress most frequently came after my weekly meetings with my client. The case was one wherein I was to find my client's missing robot. The details were as such:
1. My client had been given the makings of a robot
2. My client had assembled the robot's makings
3. Upon the robot's activation the robot greeted my client
4. This greeting surprised my client
5. Due to my client's surprise my client ran away from the robot
6. My client returned to where the robot was last seen
7. The robot was no longer there, nor on the premises
8. My client and I assumed that the robot left of its own volition seeing as how it had no enemies and was of no known value at the time of its initial construction
My client was able to provide me with little auxiliary information regarding the robot. As my first missing persons case I had little information to work from, no base from which to start. What was this person I was looking for, how were these parts making a person? Person-hood made of detritus willed to a still living friend.
"Good morning," I always greeted my client, "how are you doing?" My client admitted to being sleepy because a birthday party had been attended the night prior. My client enquired as to the progress of the case. My client was a business-orientated man. I appreciate business orientation. My client was not very tall. My client sold and bred insects for a living. I explained that the case was going slowly. I had little information from which to start my enquiry into the robot's whereabouts. I illustrated this point: "If I were going to look for a particular soccer ball I would first narrow my search to soccer pitches and those fields suitable for the playing of soccer. I would next track the movements of the players on an individual field to locate the ball on that field. Once I had located the ball on the field I would examine the ball to see if it were the target ball. I would move from playable field to playable field in this fashion. With this case I haven't enough information to search in this manner. I am seeking a ball. I don't know what sort of ball and therefore I don't know where to begin my search" I continued on to elaborate my search methodology. My client jested, "Have you looked in any family garages? As a kid that is where I'd always go to find balls to play with. Frisbees too." My client frequently jested, jokes often referenced childhood. My client was not very tall. "Have you located the will?" I was waiting on my client to deliver a copy of the will which contained instructions on how to construct the robot. My client elaborated, again and again, convoluted reasons for not bringing me these instructions. I felt that were I able to look at these instructions I could build an, at least cursory, image of what the robot looked like. "I'm sorry, I can't find them. I promise as soon as I find them I'll get them right to you Mr. Emmett." I said that I understood and thanks for trying. Our meeting continued as they usually did. No results, no new information.
The fluids pumped by the heart can't escape their tunnelwork-tube system. An inescapable pathway. The beating heart of the insect world.
I felt that Mr. Emmett was becoming frustrated with me and my case. Had I served him an impossible task? I frequently wondered about showing Mr. Emmett the flip-flops left to wait.
Wait. I usually start too soon. I know I need to slow down. If I don't give the detergent enough time it doesn't work right. Wait.
Mr. Emmett yielded. He drove through the intersection as the light turned from yellow to red. He was leaving the home of his associate, who he sometimes collaborated with. He was in his associate's car. He had borrowed the car.
I am obligated to find my client's robot. The missing person. A missing persons case entails locating the missing person. Finding. At first I wanted only to find the robot to fulfil the contracted obligation. As time went on I began to think of certain implications. I forced such thoughts back. I must. They hinder my ability to detect. They are superfluous thoughts. They're the thoughts in the back.
"I opened the trunk. It was the first thing I did. I opened the trunk to take a look in the back." I wondered why he was telling me this. I worked with him from time to time, but I didn't want to know anything about his newly purchased car. He was a forensic accountant who I hired as a consultant. He helped me trace where the money went. He was particularly good at mapping its path from account to account -- what he insisted on calling the "money's flow." I explained to him that money does not abide by the rules of fluid dynamics. He would tell me that it was just a figure of speech. "It has a huge trunk." I asked him what he might use such a large amount of trunk space for. "Case files, tax returns, bodies, receipts and proofs of purchase. You know, that kind of stuff." He added, "Maybe I'll take up skiing? This car is great. I'm gonna really start seeing the world." The car didn't do a lot to show him the world. It had 8938 miles on it and was fifteen years old when I borrowed it. He infrequently drove it. The car didn't show me the world either. I didn't want it to show me the world, nor anything else. I wanted to blend in. I was inconspicuous when I was in my friend's borrowed car with a large trunk.
I developed and then initiated a search pattern with which to look for my client's robot. I started at the point of origin where the client had constructed the robot and where it had greeted him.
"HELLO!"
From that starting point I divided the town into mile squares. I did this for a radius of 22 miles. I began to search each square. I prioritized the squares by population and physical geography. The higher the population density and the more hospitable the terrain (i.e. no lakes, rivers or other such landforms) the higher the priority assigned to a square. In my highest priority squares I worked to establish contacts and informants. These were residents of the high priority squares who would keep me informed of any notable activity. Most of these residents had to be kept on a small weekly retainer to remain reliable sources of information. A few were generous and gave their information freely.
In our second meeting, again at the diner without sticky counter tops, Mr. Emmett asked if I could show him the will and the instructions. He said that with these documents he could begin to construct at least a partial image of what December looked like. I said certainly and we parted ways. Again I ate breakfast after the meeting. When I got home that evening after work I looked for the will. I looked. I couldn't find the will anyplace. My niece joined me for dinner as she does on Tuesday nights. She helped me to look. She couldn't find the will either.
"Why is it so important that we find this thing anyways?"
"It is just good to keep such things in order, you know?"
"I guess, but why did you lose it in the first place, if, you know, it is so important to keep things in order?"
"Touche."
"Can we eat dinner now?"
"Yeah. Thanks for looking."
After my second meeting with Mr. Emmett I ate at the bar counter. The fellow with a hat was there again. "Do you eat here often," I struck up a conversation. "I saw you here the other week." He beamed, "I remember. Good morning! I live just around the corner. I live a block away. My wife passed away a while back. I cannot cook for the life of me. I am an awful cook. This diner has been a lifesaver." I was glad to hear the diner was doing so much good, a meeting place as well as a lifesaver. We exchanged pleasantries, I asked about his wife and I learned that his closest friends mostly called him The Professor. The waitress called him The Professor. "Have a good day Professor." So I did as well.
"Bah"
A greeting among sheep
"Welcome all, to this the seventy-second session of the Township Sheep Congress."
Bleating
"This seventy-second session of the Township Sheep Congress is convened to debate the merits of proposed ordinance, docket number two, on the water use plan as drafted by the Rambouillet commission. This ordinance was sanctioned and commissioned by the oversight committee for town and rural land-use, also known as the Tsurcana committee. Let the minutes reflect that the Tsurcana committee has both approved and endorsed the Rambouillet commission's proposed ordinance outside of session."
Prolonged bleating.
Chewing of the cud
"Bah."
The sheep congress does not meet frequently
I ran into The Professor from time to time. We were building a friendship. One day I received a note from him while I was at work.
"Dear Beetle Seller,
Please meet me at the diner tonight.
- The Professor."
The note was written on the recycled printout of an e-mail.
The note hadn't a meeting time, I assumed "tonight" meant dinner-ish. I didn't think much of the note but I thought that breakfast for dinner sounded like a rather good idea. It had been a rough day and breakfast was always a good way to start things fresh.
Once upon a time you handed me the clipping and told me to "get lost," something about your thinking I might like to see someplace new. That is what you said. You gave it to me. You cut it out of the newspaper and you gave it to me. I could feel the paper and ink in my fingers.
It was just a newspaper clipping. Someone was looking to get their car delivered across country. They needed someone to drive their car. You suggested that I do it. I was young then. I didn't have anything to do after school.
December began to analyze the load of laundry. Particulate buildup, soil composition, fabric, dyes, adhesion, solubility, ph level, place of manufacture and special requests. Ticket number. Content of pockets. December prided herself in her ability to remove stains. She sometimes couldn't fill orders in time but she could always remove stains given enough time. Milly liked December's ability to remove stains. The jar of pennies would have been filled more quickly if December were able to wash more clothes more quickly. December's book under the counter distracted her from her stain removing. "Oh my." It was December's book: The book shifted beneath the counter and fell to the floor taking the jar of pennies with it. December bent below the counter to collect the pennies and to retrieve her book. A car drove by. A spoon did nothing.
After work I went to the diner for breakfast and to meet The Professor. He was there when I arrived.
"Right on time."
"Glad to hear it."
He seemed happy to see me. He also seemed tired. He had a story to tell. He and I sat together at a booth which wasn't sticky and ordered our respective meals. We chatted idly, waiting for our food, telling each other about our relative day. Retelling our different experiences of the same temporal designation. Shared. He told me about the two lectures he gave earlier and that one of them was cut short because of a fire alarm. There was not a fire. A false alarm. I told him about the insect business and how my clerk looked like a cowboy. I didn't tell him about the clerk's trainers and how he never wore a cowboy's boots.
"I am sorry. I couldn't help noticing that you meet with a large fellow here sometimes. You and he have meetings frequently. The golem. I know it isn't my business. It is his business. You have hired him. I know that he is a private detective. I know the golem. I am sorry to bring this up."
"It is fine. It isn't a secret. He is rather obviously a golem," I was confused and a little anxious.
"I know the golem. I am the reason he is here. I brought him to this town. I brought him through this town and he came back to it. He wouldn't have found it, I wager, if it were not for my having driven him through it."
The Professor continued: he explained that when he graduated from college, before he went to university in the city where he become The Professor, he had taken a contract to deliver an elderly man's car from one part of the country to another. From one city to another city. The elderly fellow, a rabbi, had died before he delivered the car but the rabbi's congregation wanted the car delivered anyway. He and a friend drove from one city to the other in the rabbi's car. She and The Not-Yet Professor also delivered the golem who rode with them in the car. This was how he knew the golem. He delivered the golem with his friend. They had delivered the golem and a car from one place to another.
I felt that I was looking for my client's robot without cause. There were no reasons that this robot needed finding. What was this robot? To my client. My client hadn't experienced loss. My client had been given a gift and the gift had been an impermanent one. One-two my client. My client was asking me to cling to a present mist that had long since dissipated. What was this robot? An echoing one-two. There was nothing to find. The duel lost and found, past and present, one-two being made to be present. What was this robot? To my client. My client hadn't experienced loss because more was present. One had been made to two. One-two. New. One. Two.
"I'll put on some tea, please make yourself at home, honey."
"Thank you."
"Oh hush, December-Juliet. You needn't thank us so much." Oliver smiled.
Oliver and Milly were truly thankful for December and the work she did for them. They felt for her as if she were family.
"How was your day? Did that Dubloon fellow swing by to pick up his ticket?"
"Mrs. Annie Dubloon came by with some children."
"Oh my. I didn't realize there was a Mrs. Dubloon. I always took Mr. Dubloon for a bachelor." Milly gossiped with stains frequently. She continued: noting that his tickets were comprised only ever of his clothes, never any from anyone else, and how he must wear such and such a sort of outfit every day and how his clothing usually needed such and such a solvent, meaning that he had such and such a kind of stain. Milly read stories in stains. They shared with her their stories.
I am searching for a made device and that is all. I am searching from something which has been made from recycled materials. You can feel the pages. It needs more complete and full definition, that is all. To my client. My client has hired me to find something. I have written a contract obligating me to find my client's creation.
The beating heart of the insect world
"Enough about the laundromat, December. How are you? What is up?"
"I need to leave Milly, Oliver. I received a message today."
"I don't understand, Dear: leave? A message from whom?"
"I need to leave right away. I am sorry for such short notice. I only just found out,"
Once upon a time amidst the cozy din of a holiday party a few years back:
" … We were starting. It would have been pleasant if there were flags and a parade with trumpet music, some sort of celebration of our starting. The motor started though. Its hum was mildly celebratory I remember. The car was very old and I was not certain that it was going to turnover, let alone take us all the way across the country. This was the start of our journey, your great uncle and mine. We had decided to spend our summer, the one between our having graduated from college and my going to med school -- his going to graduate school -- we had decided to spend it, anyways, delivering some rabbi's car. It was an ancient and little car. It was all black and chrome on the outside, on the inside it was all opulent, meticulously cared for leather and wood. It was an incredibly luxurious thing. Your great uncle, there, had been given a newspaper clipping which was a job listing. We were both strapped for cash. This particular listing wasn't actually that lucrative but it seemed fun I guess and it got us from one place to another. We desperately wanted to get from one place to another. Maybe you can relate because you are graduating next semester. Anyways: the day before we left for the trip we received a phone call. The rabbi had died, evidently right in the middle of an important holiday service, something about a hut, or a booth…? The congregation still wanted us to deliver his car; it had been willed to some relative of the rabbi's in the city, a butcher I think. We were also supposed to bring along something that the rabbi had left in storage. Neither your great uncle nor myself had any idea what a golem was. I presumed it was a book or a scroll. We were surprised when a tall porcelain fellow met us at the car park. He introduced himself as Emmett and explained how he wasn't allowed to drive on accounts of his poor eyesight. He thanked us for our assistance and I don't think he said much of anything else for the rest of the journey."
"Nature Boy" peaks at a moment of hush in the din-filled room. It has slipped in amongst jazz covers of Christmas standards.
"I need to leave right away. I am sorry for such short notice. I only just found out, here, in this advert." It wasn't much of a thing: no fancy copy text, no promising new career or product, no fire sale or last minute liquidation. It was just a cheap advert in the local paper. December had noticed it when her book shifted beneath the counter knocking over the jar of pennies, leaving the spoon to continue to do nothing at all. The paper was on the ground by her shoes where December had left it. Wait. She read the free paper every morning on her way to work. She infrequently looked at the adverts' section. The advert was looking for December and she found the thing.
"I think that you and the one you are searching for are in great danger,"
"Excuse me?"
"Both you and the person who you are looking for aren't safe. The golem isn't safe. The golem is dangerous. He sees something that should be hidden in the tangle. He doesn't notice the tangle. I think that he means to murder whomever it is you've hired him to find. He will kill them. I know how to find this person, though, before he does. There is still time for rescue. There is time for prevention. The golem doesn't have to commit murder."
"How do you know all of this -- just from driving Mr. Emmett around one summer years ago?"
"Yes. Partially, yes, because of that. I disentangled this information. Mr. Emmett's and my strands cross paths often. Every point at which our strands have crossed, which they do frequently, our surface areas become more highly entangled. The more highly entangled we become the greater our mutually contingent disentanglement factor becomes -- which is a factor of strand crossings relative to time. I have been working on a unified theory of disentanglement. As model I have had to use my own life. My own life and its strands are the only ones which I can, as of yet, render fully enough to manipulate and calculate in a way which is predicatively useful. This is how I found these plots out. Mr. Emmet will murder the person you are trying to find if we do not find them first. I know how to find them. I have an idea of what to do in order to find them: an advertisement."
Which is why The Professor and I went about placing an advertisement in two local papers in an attempt to find December. That and I figured it couldn't hurt -- it wasn't very expensive. I was familiar with running advertisements for the business. This was the first advertisement I ran without my shop's logo.
The advertisement was duplicated and distributed widely throughout the newspaper-reading world. My search for December became a widely advertised affair. The advertisement used simple, effective copy text. No graphic elements.
I must break parts down so that I can articulate more clearly. I need certain definition because this is a case without continuity. The trail isn't traceable from a particular point of inception. This isn't economic. A reciprocally systemic search backwards from the point of hire to the point at which my client lost contact with the robot is not proving fruitful. I am shifting approaches. I will elaborate my client's and the robot's motives. This elaboration will clarify their reasons for separating. Their separating seems to have been a self-induced event. They were not coerced, of this I am certain. There is no apparent third party or outside manipulation. This is a contained case. I have been hired to find my client's robot which my client ran away from upon the robot's initial booting. Upon booting the robot said: "HELLO!"
What is frightening about this? Nothing. The phrase in and of itself is not frightening, of this I am certain. Perhaps my client did not run from the meaning of the phrase but rather form the phrase's application. The way in which the phrase was uttered. The volume. The addressee. My client was not the sole addressee of the boot phrase. This was a greeting phrase addressing more than my client. My client ran not from the robot, my client ran from everyone else present who was made visible with the robot's greeting.
"HELLO!"
The greeting is an incomplete statement, requiring an implied You. The volume was greater than that of an address to a single You, reinterpret: You all.
My client's robot is dangerous. My client's robot represents a threat to continued continuity of individual-self. I, primarily, must preserve this singularity of self. There is only One.
The result of my efforts in elaboration have negated my previously contracted obligation. Un-written. I must eliminate my client's robot at any cost. My client's robot destabilizes the efforts of singularity. One cannot be made two.
Spoons were the first machines of consumption: They bring the things of the world to mouths filled with teeth. The things of the world are brought to the mouth and its teeth and are chewed up. Chewing is a process wherein the surface area of things is increased. This increase in surface area allows for better digestion of things. A spoon carries things to places of consumption.
Placing the advertisement was a risk. Both The Professor and I knew this. It gave Mr. Emmett something to monitor -- a new way for him to find December. The Professor was certain that this was the best way for us to get to December before Mr. Emmett. I waited with baited breath by the phone. It rang. It rang in a way which indicated that it had received a text message. We, the phone and I, ignored pleasantries, quickly deciding where to meet. Fearing that our conversation was being monitored I tried to keep it brief. Within the hour The Professor and I met December.
The utilization of an advertisement was ingenious. If my client's robot wanted to be found it could reveal itself in response. If it did not want to be found the advertisement could potentially double as a missing person's poster, albeit solely textual. It also gave me something to monitor. The advertisement gave a phone number, not the one I had for my client but a prepaid one. If my client were to hear from the robot I would know through my covert surveillance:
"-- Hi," December was hesitant. The door open and shut. "I'm here answering this advertisement, we texted earlier? I'm a little early..." stuttering, as if to continue toward an apology.
"I'm glad you made it. We're both glad."
"Yes, very."
"Thanks --"
"Yes, sorry, you do not know what this is about do you."
"And, yet, I came..."
"I sell beetles."
"I'm December." December's handshake wasn't clammy, nor was it sticky.
"It is very nice to meet you, December."
I thought of December's assemblage infrequently. It was incomprehensible and difficult for me to remember. I was still ashamed at having run away.
"You are not safe, I don't think any of us are."
"I am dangerous," skeptically adding, "you all are dangerous?" pointing first at herself, then at me and The Professor.
"No. You are in danger December."
"You are a robot that I assembled. A dear friend of mine willed you to me. Well, willed your parts to me. You are the recycled and assembled parts that couldn't be cremated."
Baffled: "I am a collage."
This will have to be revisited
"I hate to interrupt. I don't like that I have to cut this short. I think that it would be best if we were to relocate. We do not have much time before Mr. Emmett finds us."
"Who?"
"Mr. Emmett, he is trying to kill you. Perhaps the both of us as well. He thinks that you need erasure," adding, "I am The Professor. I am pleased to make your acquaintance December."
"It is nice to meet you Professor."
"Now, we really must be off before Mr. Emmett arrives."
And so The beetle seller, The Professor and December made to run. Wondering why they all weren't meeting in a more secure location. This shop seemed predictable. It was a place where two ends met.
An ant carried a leaf back to its colony. Another ant carried my focus. An ant captured my focus and brought it to the other ants so they could chew it up. Chewing increases surface area. The surface area of my focus, of that which was me and my focus, was greatly increased and distributed amongst the ant colony. My focus entered the world of insects through a single ant. From that ant it was distributed throughout the entire world of the insects, first from ant to ant and then more widely within the insect community. My focus, and thus my attention, courses through the veins of the insect world.
The insect world's beating heart is more steady than most still beating hearts. I'm distilled from time, remaining here now presently. An insect's location in time is different than a mammal's location in time, or even a plant's location in time. My focus is pumped through the beating heart of the insect world, with its location in time, as someplace but only once. There, in this once, in this once upon a time I am eaten Eucharist and chewed grass, I am cud. I am dead. I had quills with which I wrote my life and they have been buried beneath the ground.
Once upon a time
We - the weight of the car, the driver and passenger, the road planners, the tire manufacturer, velocity and the concerned physics, too - killed the porcupine. We killed it dead. The porcupine was run over at 53 mph. We had not ever seen a porcupine before killing the porcupine.
"PRICKLY PEAR!" A meek and uncommitted swerving, a bump which caused the music to skip a beat and a gasp. The car slowed to a stop. We ran from the vehicle the few yards to where the creature lay dying. The taillights of the car illuminated us all: red sheathed and iridescent golden gilding. We were become the first letter of a page. We stood over the killed porcupine looking. It was certainly a porcupine and not a hedgehog, lizard, rhino, tortoise, rabbit or hare. It's quills sharp, longer than I would have guessed them to be.
"Porcupine. It is a porcupine, not a prickly pear. That is a type of fruit."
"I know. I was nervous. They grow on cacti, don't they?"
"It sure looks like a cactus."
"Help me move it. We shouldn't leave it here."
"Yeah."
We would share a long while in silence when we got back into the car and drove away from where we had killed the porcupine. We would also both cry privately, later, the next day. Neither would tell the other about our having cried, not yet at least.
There isn't context for forgiveness in the case of the killing of the porcupine. There is guilt. There is pain. There is shame. There is abashedness. There is sorrow. There is pride. There is the meat'n'd'bones. There is probability and there is change. There is certainty because there was death. We killed the porcupine. We, and all of the concerned constituent parts involved in "We," killed the porcupine. We were participant in a universal conspiracy wherein there had been conspiring to kill the porcupine.
We killed the porcupine going to visit. We had a late starting to go to visit. We both, separately, had to work late and weren't able to get off early. We borrowed the car. In the morning when it had trouble starting we had to get it repaired and to explain that we had borrowed it. Our late starting meant we drove in the night on the dark and empty road. We didn't pass any other cars or trucks, just the occasional dual beams of light and a collection of rattling sounds. We were a collision of continuous discrete points along a coordinated line, graduated.
I am saying that we were a timeline. We were the continuous present that evening when we killed the porcupine by accident, in accident, on accident, when we ran it over at night in the car that we had borrowed in order to go visit. We were going to visit December's old friends the night we killed the porcupine, those ones who run a Laundromat.
I carried the porcupine to the side of the road where there was a ditch, beyond which was a field. The Earth there was soft. We were able to dig easily into it with our hands. We dug a small hole that fit the porcupine's shape snugly. There, in a pit in the field beyond the ditch next to the road we buried the porcupine that we had killed. December left a blue colored stone on top of the covered over pit. The stone punctuated the events of the porcupine. Ritual.
"HELLO!"
"Paige!?"
"I'm here, December."
"Paige?"
"Down here, December."
I was beneath the counter. The register's cabling had come undone from the outlet when a customer had inadvertently shifted the register. I was reattaching the cables to the outlet.
"What are you doing down there?"
"Oh... you know: nothing."
"Look what I've brought."
December had brought us lunch. It was going on three when we met and neither of us had eaten yet. We decided that it would be a good thing to do, together. December went to get us something to eat. I enjoyed eating with December.
The door swung open.
"Good afternoon you two. How are you all?"
"We were about to eat some lunch. Care to join us?"
"I'm looking for my niece, actually. Thank you though December."
"Did you lose your niece?"
"I think that she is hiding from me." Absently adding: "I bet she's at the library. Or the diner maybe. Have a good day you two."
The door shut.
I met December a long while before I did anything. Our parts didn't equate to our whole mathematically. Our math isn't economic. It is different. We do not equal two. Our 1+1=3, not 2. We are two lines that, in parallel, describe a third.
We got back into the car and continued on to go visit.
I made my move. My surveillance showed, certainly, that The Professor and my client had made contact with my client's robot. They were all together present. I made my move.
"Now, we really must be off before Mr. Emmett arrives."
Spoken too soon. At that moment Mr. Emmett burst through my shop's plate glass front window. I much later wondered why he hadn't entered, suddenly, through one of my stores three actual doors. Shock and awe I suppose. We were all shocked, accept for Mrs. Agle. She was furious. Unbelievably furious. She said nothing at all. She was wrath itself. She was completely unbelievable. None of us had seen her enter, or knew how she had gotten into the shop. Her response was unbelievable. Her movements were deft, skilled and quick. She dispatched Mr. Emmett in an instant. He stood stock still and took it. Fell over flat. His falling was loud. He grunted when he hit the ground.
I made my move: my surprise entrance through an unexpected point of entry. I sought to catch them all together present unaware. I was going to make my entrance, I was going to separate the two humans from the dangerous robot and I was going to destroy my client's dangerous robot. The robot's destruction was my primary objective. I hoped to be able to destroy my client's dangerous robot without harm coming to either of the two humans present. I made my move and made to continue but I was thwarted in the second effort. I came against an unseen resistance. Everything was made to blackness as I fell to the ground. The ground where, under the floor and the foundation, my body-stuff - clay - could be found. I was made to move back towards the ground in darkness. My client, The Professor, and my client's dangerous robot escaped while I was made to move towards the ground in darkness.
I was felled by an invisible force. Belief. vi=gt I hit the ground in blackness. Fallen. They all escaped into my darkness, that place out of which I could not see. They ran quickly away, out the door to safety. Away from me. Fallen. vi=gt
There is a planet. It is in an odd orbit around a super massive black hole at the center of a galaxy. This planet's orbit is within the black hole's event horizon - the place beyond which there is no escape from a black hole's gravity. The planet is lit and kept warm by a steady streaming of protons into the black hole.
This planet is inhabited by the Lookers. The Lookers who can see out of the black hole's event horizon but who cannot be seen from outside of the event horizon. If the rest of the universe were able to look in on the Lookers they would appear frozen, completely still in time (fluctuating minute with their special orbit). The Lookers' have special sight.
They all left the shop but Mrs. Agle remained. The golem lay fallen, felled by Mrs. Agle. She stood over him for a long while looking. Mrs. Agle looked. Mrs. Agle left. Her leaving re-placed the golem. He stood -- slowly, unsteady -- after Mrs. Agle looked and left. Like lighting, arrows and fire he moved quickly once standing steady. Mr. Emmett made chase. They all left the shop empty. The insects trapped in terrariums remained only. Still.
The three fled. The maker-uncle-beetle seller, December and The Professor. Quickly away.
… to visit …
"You made it!"
"We're sorry to be so late, Milly."
"Don't worry about it, I'm glad you both made it safe. Please, come in."
"Thank you Milly. Is Oliver asleep?"
"Yes, Paige, sorry. He had a long day but promised to be up early in the morning."
"No, we are so sorry to be so late."
The entrance was easy. Slid open. The door didn't get caught up or stick. It rolled in its track.
Once upon a time
The three fled. They fled to a secret spot, a place The Professor knew. He said it would be a safe place to hide for a time away from Mr. Emmett's looking. They couldn't hide forever, only for a time. Mr. Emmett looked, following in the borrowed car to blend in. Camouflage. Chameleon. Car. Driving; looking; searching; hunting. Hiding. Looking to blend in, they hid in the secret spot. Camouflage. Chameleon. Car. Driving; looking; searching; hunting. Hiding. Camouflage. Chameleon. Wait.
December bundled the ticket, all folded and clean. Ready for pickup. Mrs. Annie Dubloon came for it. Picked up Mr. Dubloon's wash. She brought her daughter along on the errand. Dropped her daughter off with her brother afterwards so that she could go off to work -- night shift. Left her daughter with her brother. Niece and uncle. Relative. Ants. The niece and uncle searched together for something that the uncle had misplaced. Lost. Wait. It was the uncle's will to find. It wasn't found. It had been used up. They ate dinner and played boardgames, willingly. Misplaced. Disjointed. Wait. Chameleon. Camouflage. Hiding. Hunting; searching; looking; driving. Making chase. Pursuit. Making chase. Searching hiding.
They all fled. Mr. Emmett chased. He searched. They all fled. They all hid. They all ran. He searched. Their clothes were dew-wet, having picked up the resting-waiting-wet from the leaves and trees they all ran by and brushed against. December trailed to look behind. Sudden stumbling stop. Start. Run into those before her, up into them. Gasp.
"Shh. Stop. Wait. Quietly." Hands tugged her down to the dew-wet grasses' level. "We're here at the place. We've made it to where we can hide." A door was hidden in the ground in front of them. The Professor slid it open. They all went. Down deep. Her breathing was short. Shallow. She drew the air into her, trying to slow. To calm. She knew the golem's eyes were searching. They all descended the ladder. It was wood and rock, built right into the Earth's dirt.
Light. Striking and bright, the flash briefly blinds. "We won't be found down here. Not for a good long time at least." The bare bulb hung from the rammed-earth ceiling, seemingly plugged into the dirt and soil. Pendulum's swinging shifting time. The bear bulb hangs from the rammed-earth ceiling, seemingly it is plugged into the dirt and soil. Swinging. The bare bulb was put there and plugged in years before. This cellar where they are hiding was dug by hand, alone by the Shepherd-keeper of the municipal sheep when he was young and kept a cabin. He built it to be a quiet space.
He felt alone. He had been a hunter before he learned to be a Shepherd. When he felt alone he hunted to get right up close and to not feel alone. Loneliness has to be come at side-wise though. The fabric's warp and weft doesn't run that way. The fabric is made to bunch when slid across side-wise. He dug the pit to cultivate quiet. He hoped to grow his will's ability to listen and sit so that he could begin to see and to arrive in the nutritive quiet. The hunter found the pit to be the loneliest place of all. He abandoned it.
"Bah," -- troublesome this doesn't get across - "bah." I am I, a sheep is a sheep is a sheep. I am I. He felt loneliest down deep in his hand dug cellar away from everything else. He wasn't in company. He wasn't arrived with or arriving with. Presently. He built something to lose his loneliness in and it didn't work. They all found it though. Their shadows shift continuously across and back along the earthen walls as the bare bulb swingsgentle. They all hid in the down deep quiet space together away from the golem's searching. In company arrived.
"It is so quiet."
"We're deep under ground."
"There is a hill on top of us."
Buried down deep, safely hid from the golem's search. Emmett ran fast. Quick. Searching, seeking, looking, hunting. Light swings. Time's pendulum tracing arcs. December sighed after time passed there down deep buried beneath the hill. Hid deeply, safe there from Mr. Emmett's searching fast run. It is time to act. Taken for an actor It is time to act. December sighed she knew that Mr. Emmett wouldn't give up. She knew that hiding from his searching, seeking, looking, hunting wouldn't solve a thing. Maybe it would delay things. Them. They all were hiding there, down so deep, buried beneath the hill. Searched for above, amidst the trees: those dark trees. Knowing that they couldn't hide there, not forever, not for much longer, December felt it time to act. To make a move. Her move. Night had come outside above them where Mr. Emmett ran fast, quick, searching, seeking, looking, hunting for them with his intention being to eliminate my client's robot and to bring no harm at the same time to the others, no need to harm them nor want to harm them. Wanting. December sighed, buried there with The Professor and her constructor the beetle seller. It is time to act. Above them all the stars shifted -- mechanical prescription -- against the dark trees. Prescribed mechanism, machinebeing-base. Clockwork cogwork ticktockticktockwork. December sighed. December was breathing shallow and short. Nervous. It is time to act. December sighed and took a long deep breath. Wait. Action.
The evening air was cool. December stood alongside the branchtracks of a pine tree's lowest whirl. The tree's long shadow cast across where she stood far past the water's edge, cast there by the moon, the tree's shadow skipped across the lake. December greeted the lake from which rose a mist, into which blew dust. Meeting and congealing the dust and mist coagulated into solid wholeness while rising from the lake's surface. A monster looklooked. Looking like a monster where the dust and mist met and precipitated into the lake, breaking the calm surface where the moon cast the long pine tree shadow. Rising out of the lake, raining into the lake, casting across the lake's surface. December looked, she could see movement a few yards away along side of her. Something was coming out of the forest to wade into the lake toward the place where the dust and the mist met. Monstrously there. December watched as Mr. Emmett stepped into the water out of the of woods.
Then a released ghost's whisper the beating heart of the insect world. Attention grasped.
Attention released.
Repeated again:
released and grasped.
December knew of what she was made. Mr. Emmett waded deeper into the lake, past his knees, unbuttoning his collared shirt. His porcelain personhood revealed in the dark in the lake in the woods. Where the dust and mist met and congealed monstrously, turned. Mr. Emmett looked and was looked at. Watched the beating heart of the insect world, released and grasped. Repeated again, released and grasped, a turning where the mist and the dust congealed. A ghost presence. Stop! December shouted what she was made of, knowing that Mr. Emmett wasn't so water worthy. Stop! A turning where the congealing was. Looked. Seen. December stood still, reaming motionless becoming silent. Mr. Emmett looked up at the turning, his porcelain personhood bare, looking then from the turning to where December still stood.
My best friend died suddenly, an unexpected death. We had been childhood friends who were born a few days apart. Our mother's had been friends, our father's too. I don't know if they had all known each other before our births. I remember when I learned that my friend died. That is when this all started. After my best friend was cremated I was presented with an urn which rattled. I was also the soul beneficiary of the will. I felt left to reconstruct. Do you think of your boyhood, Professor?
"On occasion, yes."
I feel like I still live mine. My youthdream was so entirely focused around insects, I was obsessed with following bugs around and watching them. Here I am now and still that is what I notice. Do you see over their? Pointing across the small damp earthen hiding place. There, it is moving now.
Yes I see it. Is it a bee?
Yes, it is a ground dwelling bumble bee. It must have come here with us when we climbed down. I bet that it is a female looking to start a new colony. Honey bee's establish new colonies by swarming. When a honey bee colony reaches a certain size the colony will divide, half remaining with the hive, the other half forming a swarm which sets out to establish a new colony independent but derivative of the original. Divergent. Bumble bee's are different. They do not swarm. A young queen carries in her the makings of a new colony. She sets off, finds a suitable nesting place, builds a wax cell structure and begins to lay her new colony. It is time to act.
December's head turned, cocked as if listening closely to what the Professor and the bug seller were discussing. She heard and realized that it was her time to act. December felt it time to act. To make a move. Her move. She stood, raised her hand toward the swinging bulb and grabbed hold. She stopped its swinging. Time's pendulum. The beating heart of the insect world. December sighed -- the echoed one -- and drew a deep breath. December's sigh. It is time to act. December sighed and took a long deep breath. Wait. Action. The bare bulb hung motionless, bathing December in its light, enveloping her.
When her held-her carried air was spent December surfaced from beneath the saturating light into the cool dark. She drew a gasping deep breath. The evening air was cool; she filled herself with it. Relaxing. Slowing. Breathing. Calming the beating heart of the insect world.
[Please Note: "Once upon a time..." is an offering of temporal coordinate. Saying "once upon a time," is very much like saying "the latitudinal and longitudinal bearings are..." "Once upon a time" is a statement indicative of a location, a temporal coordinate follows a "once upon a time."]
Once upon a time
December shook herself of the remaining light that clung to her dripdropdripping. Her clothes and hair were drenched. She stood at the edge of the wood by the lake watching Mr. Emmett. Stop! The dust and mist leaned forward, reaching toward Mr. Emmett. She felt the breeze bite through her wet clothes which clung to her nakedness, water catching in her sieve-head. The dust and mist touched Mr. Emmett: finger to forehead. A sound like a dozen terracotta planters filled with gravel shaking.
Once upon a time
Mr. Emmett sat in the back seat of a rather fine car. He was being driven to a new place, through them as well. The car was being driven, full stop. After a short time the light changed. Afternoon to evening. Red to green. Outside of the car passed pastured land on which grazed sheep. They chewed their cud. They chewed the grass. Chewing increases surface area. The flock zipped by the rather fine car with its back seat filled with Mr. Emmett. The flock of sheep, let loose across the pastured land, the municipal green spaces, in order to manage the growth there. Chewing increases surface area, yet they were let loose on that land to manage its growth. Contain, control, cut back. Chewing is different; it increases surface area. Growth.
Once upon a time
My best friend died so suddenly. I didn't see death coming. I had no warning. There weren't any signs -- which, frankly, is a tiny bit strange to me. An entire life dedicated to cartography and I couldn't have been given a map with which to navigate our friendship? I breed and sell insects. My best friend made and sold maps. It'd have been decent to have been given a map, you know? I guess I haven't ever given a beetle as a gift, never even thought to give a beetle as a gift. They're always just sort of there. Why would I need to give one to anybody? We did use a beetle to make a map once... it was fun. We made a tiny rucksack filled with tiny instrumentation that the beetle could wear. As it flew around town we gathered-up data points. Those data points made us a map of everywhere that beetle went. That was fun, that map of where the beetle went was unexpected.
Once upon a time
J.G.
