Macroscope

Written 3/13/2008 18:53 About a man in an opium den.


Trails from his opium pipe of smoke watery thin, whirling in washed-out greys. Thinned the space between his eyelids. On pillows with tassels crafted in opulence and fabric stained from sloppiness the pipe-smoker sat, propped up in improper setting. Originally his irises look black but look closer. See the dark brown? Even through the smoke-wisps it’s distinguished from the oil-wells in which light is carried on black currents. That hair’s erratic. On the left side strands stick out. Clumps are formed on the right and a bald spot on top shows his pate. Blotches beneath the healthy skin, brown to copper-red in color range, splotchy-edged obliques festered with grayish-brown moles and black hairs…wrinkles which’re ravines in the topography of his face, wrinkles show his age. Skin’s permanently creased, the way paper gets after many crinklings and unfoldings. There’re more stains on his shirt. You can still smell the food. Patches of armpit-hair are exposed by the wife-beater he wears. Those stringy chicken-arms are pathetic. Something has stained his nails (in the wood-finishing sense) yellow. Drifts of gray obscure his mouth but when he breaths out look: there’s teeth missing. Gummy gabber. Neighbors moanings, snoring, gibbering, whispered speeches to self, sickly weak underbreath deliveries, and attendants bringing refreshing pipe-filler make the room almost quiet. Old timbers bounce back the noises. A few more-awake transactions escape from upstairs: the voices of clearer heads. Sounds come through sheets with detailed color patterns (purple swirls trimmed with gold color linking with slightly scarlet red swirls also trimmed with gold; at the corners from the narrow portion of the tao-pieces are squares with green and red bifurcated interiors bordered by gold threads that squarishly vary from high to low like a castle wall; diamonds evenly spaced over the pillows other patterns are black at the edges, pale yellow-orange at the center and grades of deepening red inbetween), the accumulated human grease in locals ears and opiate haze.

Your hero is in a room without doors. Dolls hang from the rafters. There’re two layers of rafters before the ceiling’s visible. One looks like Pinocchio, a short nose tapering conically, wide from the face but narrow and flat at the end, a single felt leaf perches from a little branch on its’ nose, wooden plus signs attached to its’ strings await Geppeto to play marionette. He’s almost beat the world record. Another humanoid thing is an empty suit, sheeny purple reflecting the light, flattening because there’s no stuffin –save in the clown-head, topped by a purple triple red-poof ball party hat and white skeins for beany hands and feet, the hands circles, the feet dumpy triangles and both bordered by round wave edged cuffs. Just a little longer and his toenails will be longer than the champ’s. With a velvety bonnet and cake-layer dress the child-sized china doll looks pretty, a little set of nail clippers in her hand, her porcelain face impassive. Measuring tape says his big toe boasts a 6-inch nail; the current record holder’s is eight inches. They’re trying to take my nails! Advancing, the dolls close in from the dark. Indescribably many and shadow-obscured they encircle the trembling competitor. He brandishes the measuring tape for protection but they stalk forward. Unearthly, some hang from taunt strings. Where once were rafters now only darkness. Their feet unanimously step forward without noise. The rights all together. He’s shaking. Why can’t they let him be? So long he has saved –forsaking socks for his feet! They’re closing in. He can’t even vent his full want of shaking for fear of bumping animated wood. Closer. He screams as they grab him, taking the left foot (his trophy candidate) in cotton-filled hands for their clipper-wielding princess.

The old man’s back at his mother’s house. Young again.

“If those bullies give you trouble you kick they ass. You can’ let dem do what they want to you! Where’s your priiiiide? Come home –looking like hit by truck- bruised. I no cry for you. You need to stand up for self. I here all day. Father be so ashamed see his boy beat up like you. The other kids better have some cuts!”

The right side of her face melts. For a second it goes liquid, flowing down. Then it’s regular skin again but hanging, grotesque. Her eye’s a dribbling thing on the right side of her chin. Paddy layers of skin stretch to her neck like a turkey’s waddle.

“Now come on. You don’t need to cry like dat.” Her voice is consoling, softer than normal (before she was yelling).

Hair sprout from her skinHER whole body swells ‘til her back brushes the ceiling. Her mouth stretches out to consume what was her chest with a toothy hole. Claws are on her handless arm-ends.

“Come give me a hug.”

The monster waddles forward and you screamKicking against the ground so as to keep distance.

“What’s a matter?”

The voice is tender the monster is leering. It steps

Tinkle. Someone opened the door upstairs. Everything’s a bright smudge. Resolves into the dim den. Attendent’s a few steps back than she was. Didn’t she already do that? She’s going to give him some water. He hands her paper. Seen it before. Happened before?

Everything’s a dull smudge. For a second it goes solid, flowing down. Advancing, the stars come in from the dark. You can still smell the whiskers.

What they did on Observatory Metal-5 for fun and the most eventful things to happen there during Joby Tomias’s tenure.

“What’s this?” an orange blob was far-off but arcing toward the center. Stevens rolled over, “dunno” he said with ‘hmmm’ confusion and the implication that if he didn’t it was cause for concern. A smidge arrogant. What radar picked up didn’t have the profile of any known Mantlecraft. Stevens was trying to hail it but no response came. Joby put in a call to home office. “Hello M5 what’s your status?” “Fine but our radar has picked up something (looking at it) it’s a large body…its’ trajectory will carry it towards us.” “I see it. Looks like it could be slag from a scrapped Mantlecraft…hold on; I’m going to check if any have been junked today.” Patrick walks over. “What’s going on?” “Might have some fused parts on impact course.” Stevens says it like he has seen this before and isn’t worried. Patrick nods. “I’m gonna get a Saturn you guys want anything from the vending machine?” Joby says “Nah, I’m good.” distractedly, a mix of milling over potential reasons for the radar blip and listening for the home office’s response. Stevens shuffles a piece of plastic from a pocket. “I’ll have a Saturn bar too and get me a Tite also please.” “Sure thing.” “Thanks bud.” Joby’s focus fades. He looks over at Patrick’s empty station. Nothing’s going on there. Patrick’s coming back, holding a pair of wrappers and a bottle, when “M5?” “yeah home office.” “There was a skirmish today between Halat’s border patrol and the Malchian Guard. What’s showing up on your radar is believed to be a Mantlecraft hull that has broken loose. From its’ path it should only scratch you but we’re sending an evacuation boat and additional repair crew just in case.” Joby’s eyes are wide. “Understood. M5 out.” “Home office out.” Stevens is half way through his Saturn. Patrick stays standing while he eats his. “That’s it, huh?” Patrick’s mouth returns to eating. Joby takes on a touch of paranoia; “what if it doesn’t just brush it? That’s large enough to (looking around) collapse this whole room.” “The home office is full of bullshit! They’re just saying it’ll scrape us so we don’t panic. Why else would they send two ships out?” Stevens delivers his question with a sarcastic ‘yeah right’ tone for the imaginary opposing spokesman who’d assure them the Mantlecraft are coming only as a precaution. The orange blob’s arriving from half-way out. Patrick has slowed his eating pace. A solid biteful remains in the Saturn wrapper. He pushes his current bite to his right cheek-pouch to say, “so what would you do about it (addressing Stevens)?” his tone tells ‘you’re a blowhard’. “We should prep our own evacuation boats” answers Joby. They set to work doing just that, after a little more discussion. There’s a weird buzzing sound. The engineering crew calls up “your room has been locked off. Some of the outer wall was taken.” Damages are minor enough that M5’s engineering crew could have handled them alone but the home office crew joins in to help since they came out. The breaches are sealed before the day’s done. Even the lockdown was an unnecessary precaution since the surrounding magma hadn’t passed the second layer of walls.

They stacked up Bento cans and saw who could knock down the most with a baseball toss from 4 meters away. The Bento cans were in a pyramidal stack with bottom and lid edges touching. Those cans were empty but another time they stacked depleted hephanter cells. When a baseball struck them or they collided with anything else they glowed orange. Their appearance is unto an ember of charcoal heaved on by bellows yet the chemical reaction causing them to glow only puts off a mild heat. Hephanter cells are supposed to be disposed of by a very specific procedure because exposure to hephanter is poisonous. Joby managed to knock down all 15 cells once.

“You think they’ll get back together?” Patrick looks over at Stevens. “I don’t think they’ve ever really been separate.” “They’ve fought haven’t they?” inquires Joby. “Yeah but fighting doesn’t mean you’ve broken up. Even if you sleep in different places for the night. They’ve their on weeks and off weeks but they’re still a couple. I bet the whole time they’re apart they’re thinking about each other.” explains Stevens. “They’re thinking how much they hate each other.” patrick answers. His hand is comfortable around his beer bottle. The neck is familiar. When he lifts it he knows how it’ll swing by his fingers; it’s a part of his body that’s not always on. Patrick sips frequently while the others talk. “I wouldn’t mind taking a shot at Dorothy.” Joby smiles snarkily. Stevens leans back and puts up his hands “I’m married man. You can have her.” “Yeah but she probably will get back with

The attendant checks his pulse. The pipe is no longer smoking. He’s dead. No, there’s his pulse. She feels it, very weakly beneath his warm skin. She takes the pipe from the old man’s mouth. He blinks weakly while she feels him up for money to replace what he has smoked. There’s none left.