discontent! This you know!”
“You don’t all have the same uncle?”
“No…what?”
“You implied you have different uncles, not a shared uncle. Do you all have magical uncles or something?”
“Well, you know, this is a complex situation. We can’t just tell you everything, and our past is subject to varied and inconsistent retcon.”
“If that’s your idea of an answer…”
“We do that sometimes, sorry. Not a lot of conversation happening around here and its not like you have many friends.”
“I haven’t much need.”
“Not since the baby.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Not your first loss, won’t be your last. The world is complex and that’s barely an answer. Surely by now you realize that real, meaningful answers are not given but uncovered and reflected on. You generate the truth for yourself.”
“That sounds wonderful. So, anything I want can be real?”
“No. Truth has little to do with reality. Humanity always chooses that. There are no dreams, no honor remains, just the mind and what it makes of things. The arrow has left the bow long ago.”
“Where is the arrow now?”
“Hard to say.”
“What then?”
“Become the dew that quenches the land.”
“I think I hate it here…”
“Then leave. You are always free to leave. It is your mind after all.”
“How can I leave?”
“Laugh.”
“That’s it? Laugh?”
“You would have guessed so eventually. What did you think you’d have to do, tap your heels?”
In the morning I found that our campsite was next to somebody’s former respite. I figured it had to have been Chad’s. I knew he’d gone out here, alone, looking for mysteries, looking for meaning, or whatever he could find, I knew he hadn’t jumped. All I had to do was figure out which way he’d gone and follow the trail.
But like a sponge gently placed on a puddle, slowly soaking the loose water into its pores, ‘not since the baby’ seeped back into my mind and my memories began to congeal together in one place. “Not since the baby” meant something to me. How could I be certain of anything if I could so easily undo my own past. How could you confirm something as intangible as a memory?
Once I did have a baby. A baby girl. Liz, I would have called her. Liz… like me, except I’m not really Liz, am I? I hadn’t really known that until now— lodged, or trapped, in this bed—like tube with my head covered in probes by the alien. My… my story has yet to catch up to the present. My story…
Zaps of electricity force me back to the campsite with George only days ago…
Electricity…
Mom…
Grandpa…
Chad…
“Look George! Somebody was here before us.”
“The guy you’re looking for?”
“If we can just figure out which way he went.”
“He had a campfire, but it was small; he didn’t stick around long. It looks like he rushed off that way.” “How can you tell all of that?”
“He dropped some stuff over there.”
“So, he got chased you think? Or was chasing?”
“Only one way to find out.”
We followed the wrapper debris to footprints in the mud. George was busy tasting trees, for some beat—brain reason, so I snagged another apple and took off looking around. Weeks Cemetery was long ago the final resting place for many ancestors, but that place was no longer for people. There were few remains of headstones around, but rather the skeletal remains of something else covered most of the area. We stood before what looked like a shelled out main street that had been left to rot for hundreds of years; a city lost underwater only now to be rediscovered, the water drained but the damage maintained. The layout of the debris field was difficult to comprehend; it was huge, and old as the ground that had grown up around it. Trees grew through the gaps in the metal. My resolve was set, however, my confidence was low. Whatever it was, it was Chad’s mystery; if I found him maybe I could get some answers, and stop
“You don’t all have the same uncle?”
“No…what?”
“You implied you have different uncles, not a shared uncle. Do you all have magical uncles or something?”
“Well, you know, this is a complex situation. We can’t just tell you everything, and our past is subject to varied and inconsistent retcon.”
“If that’s your idea of an answer…”
“We do that sometimes, sorry. Not a lot of conversation happening around here and its not like you have many friends.”
“I haven’t much need.”
“Not since the baby.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Not your first loss, won’t be your last. The world is complex and that’s barely an answer. Surely by now you realize that real, meaningful answers are not given but uncovered and reflected on. You generate the truth for yourself.”
“That sounds wonderful. So, anything I want can be real?”
“No. Truth has little to do with reality. Humanity always chooses that. There are no dreams, no honor remains, just the mind and what it makes of things. The arrow has left the bow long ago.”
“Where is the arrow now?”
“Hard to say.”
“What then?”
“Become the dew that quenches the land.”
“I think I hate it here…”
“Then leave. You are always free to leave. It is your mind after all.”
“How can I leave?”
“Laugh.”
“That’s it? Laugh?”
“You would have guessed so eventually. What did you think you’d have to do, tap your heels?”
In the morning I found that our campsite was next to somebody’s former respite. I figured it had to have been Chad’s. I knew he’d gone out here, alone, looking for mysteries, looking for meaning, or whatever he could find, I knew he hadn’t jumped. All I had to do was figure out which way he’d gone and follow the trail.
But like a sponge gently placed on a puddle, slowly soaking the loose water into its pores, ‘not since the baby’ seeped back into my mind and my memories began to congeal together in one place. “Not since the baby” meant something to me. How could I be certain of anything if I could so easily undo my own past. How could you confirm something as intangible as a memory?
Once I did have a baby. A baby girl. Liz, I would have called her. Liz… like me, except I’m not really Liz, am I? I hadn’t really known that until now— lodged, or trapped, in this bed—like tube with my head covered in probes by the alien. My… my story has yet to catch up to the present. My story…
Zaps of electricity force me back to the campsite with George only days ago…
Electricity…
Mom…
Grandpa…
Chad…
“Look George! Somebody was here before us.”
“The guy you’re looking for?”
“If we can just figure out which way he went.”
“He had a campfire, but it was small; he didn’t stick around long. It looks like he rushed off that way.” “How can you tell all of that?”
“He dropped some stuff over there.”
“So, he got chased you think? Or was chasing?”
“Only one way to find out.”
We followed the wrapper debris to footprints in the mud. George was busy tasting trees, for some beat—brain reason, so I snagged another apple and took off looking around. Weeks Cemetery was long ago the final resting place for many ancestors, but that place was no longer for people. There were few remains of headstones around, but rather the skeletal remains of something else covered most of the area. We stood before what looked like a shelled out main street that had been left to rot for hundreds of years; a city lost underwater only now to be rediscovered, the water drained but the damage maintained. The layout of the debris field was difficult to comprehend; it was huge, and old as the ground that had grown up around it. Trees grew through the gaps in the metal. My resolve was set, however, my confidence was low. Whatever it was, it was Chad’s mystery; if I found him maybe I could get some answers, and stop
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