-original story by J Mason-
-final version by K T Michau-

"What the hell was that?" No response...
Then: "Check this out."
"What?"
"Here." My shivering finger pointed at a readout showing an exponent in the seventies. I'd never seen it go past nine. On the next readout numbers were racing by so fast they were unreadable. This was one high energy event!

The lights blew. Acrid smoke tumbled into the air from frying instruments. The dull red emergency lights cut on. My eyes began to adjust to the darkness as I stumbled about putting out the several small fires that had erupted. Then I felt a warmth in my pocket. Startled, I thrust my hand in and it closed around a smooth ball about the size of a large olive. "Are you okay?"
"Yes." I said. How else might one feel with the world in one's pocket? We spent the rest of the day trying to find some cause for this catastrophe.

***

Later, standing by the window and gazing out over the smogged city, I thought back over the day's events. I still had the ball and was turning it over in my hand like the questions in my head. My hand went numb as I fondled the ball. I dropped it back in my pocket and worked my fingers to relieve the numbness.

Suddenly the skyline grayed and receded from me in both space and time. A series of powerful sensations overtook me. Every note struck in my ears as I felt everything, sensed everything. There was a dark hole alive with spires of color in complex patterns. The flowing eruptions became an infinity of superimposed panes, a different piece of reality captured in each one. Then there was a foghorn sound that, overtime, splayed into individual pitches. A disembodied head passed through every face and expression ever known. The monstrous cacophony congealed into a perfect version of....me...then marched into memory like a lie.

***

Naked, prone on the floor, paralyzed, my body was alight with clear fire. There was an area of darkness floating above my chest. More than dark, it was so black it looked concave, like a hole in space. Its silent screams sucked forward the torments of my frozen soul. I reached for the dark, and touched icy cold. Fingertips vanished.

A burst of power.

And a new understanding that my desires ripen knowledge which in turn pushes the space away.

A blinding flash.

And my eyes open on the ancient sunrise. At my side was a pouch. Tucked within was a warm ball about the size of a large olive. I quickly finished dressing and made for the streets. Who would want to hear about my new discovery?

***

"Hello sir. How may I be of service?"
"I was looking for something."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Let's see... Have you ever seen anything like this?" I fished the ball from the pouch and held it before him to see. I saw nothing, but a man dying in terror. His body flexed and trembled. He grabbed his hair and made as if to scream. Then he fell to the floor and died. He went into the pouch with he ball.

***

The day was hot, but people crowded the streets anyway. I headed for the park. Coming into the park I was assailed by flowers, murmurs, music. But it all seemed flat in a way it never had before. I sat on a bench under an old magnolia. I absently toyed with the ball in the pouch.

From a few feet away: "My! You look sad. Maybe you don't have Jesus Christ in your life...?" At first I thought his white robe was a hole cut in the air.
"Correct." the Mona Lisa in me said. I ignored him then, which kept him talking. I loosened the pouch's tether.
He went on. " Let me tell you a wonderful story about --"
"Observe." I cut him off. I held the black marble before him. His stifled whimpers drew the attention of passers-by so I quickly cupped the ball in my hand to hide it. Everyone gasped as the man emptied like a balloon and leapt at my hand, leaked into the spaces between my fingers. I dropped the sphere in the pouch and briskly walked away.

***

My friend sat across from me, a cascade of magazines and books between us. I fiddled with the pouch.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Nothing," I lied. I opened the pouch and brought out the small black ball.Suddenly my friend's face was awash in sorrow, his eyes lined with tears. Then he cried openly. He told me things for about an hour until he died.

I was numb. He had spoken through his tears of great times and wonderful people, of love, pride, success, of the pleasure of needing, of the horror of wanting and needing and needing to want all the time. Then he died in my arms. I knelt there on the floor and studied the black globe, its blackness so complete it seemed to burrow away from me yet at the same time expand to enshroud me. Our uncertain relationship caused it to crack, brilliant spears of light, silver needles pricking me from every direction. Yet I welcomed these sensations. There was every sight, every sound, every notion.

And stepping from the midst of it all was...me...who would be dead soon.




BEIG

-original text by Blackwell-
-edited as a poem by K T Michau-

sure I said
"Put that in ice cold steel"
Sure it sits askew in memory
Making lethal happy
Pandorocclusion palace prison brain

found anothe

PP: personality perception
OCI: outer collate inner
90 X 90 defeating order
([sic] beig)
Assassin enters this secrete:
Hell-bent on suicide
In a carefully
Realized
Narrative
Structure

(Pandora found anothe)

Staring wrestle children homoplasmate prototypes down
Touch diffreent inside beig
Nueva sense magnate migraine avoids
Audience input retrieval position
Blind mob perimeter tableau swarm focus
Billiard ploy caroms afoul
(should try anothe
Tinkering in soul!
Feel go splat!

Hello
Palpitations inherit fetal misgivings
Cut new feel in old place
SOS: same old story
Wake of hallucinogene
Nods, waves; should I say
Hello?

New day a thunderhead off to
See the Wizard Headjob Doctor says go

(Delete: sure I said)

Percept aback alternate percept skewered, thinking,
The ‘I' no longer applies
Too much ouch
Wrapped Heisenberg living documentary world
Mythos package breaches womb
Bow undoing

Pandora screams

Theorem A:
Priorities dictate perimeters and
Perimeters dictate endlessly of
Obligatory ‘later' real and true on
The awkwardest marital meaning

Love B:
totem
write
juice
cloud

Face constant strategic stranger
Draw mirrors devalue silver faith

(EXIT)
Orifice proclaims escape dominion
Imitation patience plodes soft speakbubble
boom ('click' enter)
ENTER:
Are we on yet?
Are we on yet?
(click, off)
OK
We're alone now boys and girls.
What ya wanna do?
Playtime? Forever?
Girls? Boys?
Hell...
Uh oh

click

boom

Hmmm...
Has it finally passed,
this sty in the eye of the hurricane,
This awareness sickening,
This paralysis at amnesia's equinox?
Purge unwarranted attentions!
Purge unwanted intentions!
Pandora's box's box rips!

...harmony of chaos...

FLY

Frame D: I'm 1
TV E: ‘beig'

Navigating expressionless caves bound to chose
Certain erroneous paths
Certain endless video gravity loops
Certain affectionate tourniquets
Barrel on temple
Finger on trigger
Taboo on dustpan

TV F: flash-cut fire
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

© 2005 K Michau, J Mason, Blackwell