On the Third Day, Boulder (barrier)
VI.v.
— Five.
Milo steps into the sandbox and starts rolling an army tank over the far sands. Then runs to the rope swing where his metal Spitfire, with real spinning rotors, lay upside down in the grass. He makes sputtering sounds rushing up to the army men from the southern flank overhead.
— Here they come, Simon. Get over here.
But he is no longer here.
Was it for his own mortal and moral fear that he dunked his own head into the sandbox unnoticed and disappeared into the crowd of molecules, or was he tempted away from corresponding obligations by the lure of motley skin-bearing courtesans mistaking him for the Prophet himself, perfectly normal considering they’d never been formally introduced, begging desperately flushed for a Grandson of God, or was he escorted away by armed Roman centurions, dutifully realizing their mistake that two weren’t better than one, that the march had ground nearly to a halt with lack of coordination? And who would they whip, anyhow?
Keep one foot in front of the other, there’s the hill there, Milo told himself, the horizon held his destination, a stone marker on a raised hillock on the outskirts of the city. The pack with the plans sat heavy on his back, he wished the waist strap hadn’t snapped as the ache ripples over his back. He’d decided to pack everything he thought he might need, several changes of clothes with extra underwear and socks thrown in, writing pads and pencils, toiletries, five days rations, his backup cane, his medication, books about self-help survivalism and voyeur’s guide to the terrain…
He dropped to his knees, undid the left strap and twisted his body to let the heavy pack slop into the marsh not far from the ransacked city threshold, it’s great stone walls reduced to the rubble he waded through.
— I just need a drink, so he licked his parched lips, reaching for his sloshing canteen. He maneuvers to a small boulder amongst the high reeds, scrabbling to its height in two strides, and took a sip, appreciating the briefest moment of relief from the burden. He reviewed the ground he’d covered, and how far he had left to trek.
It was clear for as long as he can remember: ‘These plans contain the most vital and dangerous codes ever invented by man. You must protect them with your life, and never let them fall into enemy hands.’ Private Milo must have snapped to attention and cracked off a general’s salute, mustn’t he? Why, otherwise would we be here, planted on a rock in the middle of a messy jungle ridden with death-dealing denizens, and not enough air to even breathe properly?
So diligent and attentive he was, which is why Private Milo was entrusted with his most covert and perilous mission. He learned to secretly handshake so perfectly he may have accidentally taught it to unsuspecting outsiders. He would question every order, but contribute any missing but necessary details, such as ethics or influence, to ensure the command was carried out swiftly, justly and successfully. Sometimes this required Simon, the perennial nemesis and eternal scapegoat for all of the “unsavory” villain foils, to run diversions. But since Simon remained elusive and invisible to the structure of command of Mission Control, all of the accolades and merits fell pinned to Private Milo’s epaulets.
This was the culmination of all his training, this final mission, against all odds. Even if none of this makes any sense. It was clear that he dies as an old man, this much he had encountered in his co-Incidence, but there is no memory of this last legacy act. None of this appeared, not since before Simon had joined him to travel to the edge of the old city.
It occurred to him that he’d never seen his future dreams in his co-Incidence. This must be one. Or something like it. This detaching from the voltmeter box, it will be up to him to remember this. It will need to be hidden in order to be retained yet still not alter his experience of the future. How can this be remembered if it refuses to demonstrably show up in the future.
How can be something be stowed away, secreted from its own remembering?
— As a feeling. Milo burst with momentary pride at his idea. He never had any sense memory of his future experiences, so if he could use his currently existing and running memory as an emotional warehouse, it felt to him like it might emerge in his future dreams, which he would have access to in his actual future experience.
— Simon? He was supposed to be here to steal the pack and run “away” with it toward the destination. Then Private Milo could tackle him at the right moment, take back the prize, and emerge the defiant winner before climbing up into the get-away rescue helicopter and flying off into the sunset.
After another swig of water, Milo wiped his mouth with his camouflage sleeve. He spun the water bottle screw-top closed and tossed it off the boulder. It made a dull thunk before it pinged on some small pebbles in the marsh, followed by a high-pitched female voice: “Oochie!”
Milo leaned over and looked down to catch a pair of doe-like pleading eyes over tightly pinched breast flesh wading out of the darkness.
“You’ve come far, milord.” She said demurely, with her hands clasped in front of her sex. He saw now that she had the hair of shadows, lips of bolt red hearts, and a body that shifted around queerly in a cocktail waitress dress, as if she were born with gelatin bones. Her molten breasts gushed and overflowed from the bodice’s compression. Her face was painted like a child’s toy, and a photoluminescent snake wriggled around her bicep to disappear beneath the frill sleeve. He felt his manhood shed its dormancy and tingle to life enough to lift its head.
— I have come from distant lands to be here now. Who are you?
“I am Annie the Worm-Queen, milord.” Her oriental eyes drifted off her face to along the wisps of her lids.
— How then did you come to be here, Annie?
“I was born here, out in this absence. I’ve spent all my days here ever since, though that seems like just moments ago. Can I get you something, sir?”
— A scotch and soda, please. He had thrown away his canteen too quickly, and he was already feeling thirsty again.
“Thank you, sir, I’ll bring it right out.” She made to head back into the dim backdrop, but turned back around suddenly, “I’m sorry, I meant to ask if you wanted any dessert with your drink.”
— No, thank you.
“Why are you only a private, when your abilities clearly commend you to a higher grade?”
— It’s not private like that. It’s because I’ve chosen over the course of my life to be impervious to public speculation about those things that are truly and deeply important to me. I value my privacy highly, and share only enough to remain enigmatic while asking others to unfold their life stories. They never seem unwilling, which has perplexed me to no end. Am I so trustworthy that even the most reticent would buckle and babble before me? If so, I’ve done nothing to earn it, having done my best to use all of that information against them, should it be helpful. Or do I have some exceptional insightful superpower that skeleton keys one’s deepest, darkest secrets?
“You’re just easy to talk to.”
— That’s what they all say.
“Did it ever occur to you that they were lying?”
— No, why would they have said it aloud, if they were lying?
She had already disappeared to put in his order with the kitchen, and Private Milo watched the sun go down once and for all, still waiting for Simon’s arrival, who never showed. Milo descended from his perch and returned to his backpack to rifle through its contents, scattering all its unnecessary innards to the muck, searching for the cannister that held the clandestine, sensitive Secret Plans to no avail even as everything inside was now outside, having traced over the speed of lights traversal across the sunken valley reflecting its celestial counterparts in its mire.
“Your drink, sir.” He lifted one of a hundred tilting pieces of stemware off her serving tray carefully as to not disturb the others. Floating noticeably in the martini glass and oily-streaking scotch, a bright beacon of maraschino. Captivated by its brilliance, Milo shrunk before its enormity, grasping upwards to lift this Excalibur of garnish. He would already taste its leathery sweetness, a syrupy burst of intensely artificial sugar, until he chews the soggy remains like cotton candy gum. Yet he bit confidently into something hard, acrid and ridged like an olive pit and all of his dentifrice shattered, half falling to the bog the other swallowed in one clunky ball.
Annie dropped both the serving tray of martini glasses and her knees to the ground, scouring desperately amidst the lacerative debris to snatch the pit.
“Got it!” she yelped, holding up the black cylinder triumphantly.
— Give me that back, Milo weakly protested.
“The fuck I will.” Annie remitted to the cock of a revolver, poking at him like a syringe the barrel’s maw widened around Milo’s fallen crest. The stolen cylinder felt warm and mercurial in her hand, pulsing with an unidentifiable arrhythmia. Milo cowed, bowed low, helplessly motionless, and Annie dropped her stiff gun arm to her side and loped off with the stash into the dark belt of forest leading to the hill.
Everyone you love is gonna die
Hopefully this song will come remind you
That it’s just a ride.
— Amanda Palmer, The Ride
If life were a ride, wouldn’t you want to ride it more than once?
Yes, when I was a child. I never could get enough, packed in sardine lines to get back to the tallest coaster. I was so naive and trusting: what was there to be scared about? Sure, the sensations were a bit queasy-making and off-putting, but how could there be any danger? Teems of employed adults helped design this thrill ride, so that other groups could set to manufacturing all of its parts for fleets of others to transport the pieces across the nation for reassembly here, overseen by numerous governmental agents both federal and local to ensure compliance with strict legislation enacted by a congress of individuals.
With such a toothless threat of risk, the real thrill must have been the sense of superiority I felt when watching all these idiot rag dolls screech or wail in actual terror, or the hollow spectral sheets that crave only the elevation in their genitals and the crunching of their ventricles, or those drooling dolts who thought they were themselves vanquishing some mythic foe, as if this well-oiled machine were conquerable.
But I’m an adult now, and I know that at best you get one ticket to ride.
And is that what you want for your children? You would want to spoil their fun, and tell them they have to leave?
No! Of course not, I wish I could just let them run happily, unfettered, and protect them. I wish I could set them up so they’d never need to hurt, never need to crash on a bike without a helmet, never get called names, but if it’s time for us to leave, then we have to leave.
What if no one had to leave?
Private Milo leapt courageously at Bandit Annie’s raccoon boots, knocking her to the ground. He disarmed her and recovered the plans in one action.
“Tell me who I am, Milo.”
— I don’t know who you are, or what your nefarious scheme might be, but you made a huge error in your calculations. You’ve led me through the menacing forest directly to the rescue rendezvous.
Milo raised her own weapon against her spread eagle form with arms raised.
“You know who I am, Milo.” A wash of recognition draped over Milo.
— You’re not Annie! You’re Baron von Bisdark; Ha! Again your attempts to disrupt my plans have failed.
Milo pulled the trigger, but only a toy serpent’s tongue taunted from the rim. Helicopter blades rose up over the hill against an emerging dawn.
— Consider yourself lucky, Baron, that I don’t have time to mete justice.
A long rope ladder dropped from the side of the copter as it continued its ascent, and Private Milo grabbed hold of one of the rungs. The cask of secret plans tucked safely under his arm, he’s pulled out of sight of the Baron, who’s now on his feet, shaking a rude fist into the ear, smeared costume makeup smeared under a tilted mop of wig.
Milo boards the plane back to Mission Control, the plans now shrunk and placed into his jeans pocket as a crumpled note, scrawled with the word: Betrayal.
He looks at his ticket, 32C, and blinks twice. He feels a sense of mortal dread steamroll through his chest as a hand grazes his wrist. Dark as mother’s, a bevvy of jewels strewn across gilded nails.
“Fancy meeting you here.” Cleopatrannie sits in the third row aisle seat of first class, extending to him a warm towel to sop the perspiration, the crawling angst and the unfolding confusion. He’s feeling dizzy, worried that he might fall, but he takes the warm, moistened face towel and applies it. All of the blood in his face hurtles desirously towards the sensation, and his cheeks tingle pleasantly. Droplets commingle with his pores, where the oils connect and pummel through the viscosity of water, negatively carving a pathway towards the woolen filament.
He thanks her and returns the sullied cloth. She stows it in her brown leather handbag and moves over to the window, offering him the open space. Milo crumples his ticket, and stuffs it into his jeans pocket as he takes the seat.
“Why are you only a private, when your abilities clearly commend you to a higher grade?”
— Because I have a big fat dick. Wanna see it?
Yes!
“4”