The Cord

The typewriter clicked under his quick-moving fingers. Chik-chik-chik…the pace hardly ever stopped. Light would be streaming in from the window and typed pages would form a stack next to the typewriter. He would lose the sun and then be accompanied by a few of the strongest stars, and the manuscript grew taller and taller. He was unaffected by the hours of man, by the hands of the clock or the tilt of the earth. The sounds of the neighborhood did not disturb him, nor the snoring of his neighbor, Levi, that he could hear through the wall.
He would only break the rhythm of the writing when his body required tending, or when Mrs. Johnson from upstairs would come over to prepare him some lunch. She told him she could not stand to know a man was not eating and wasting away, so she made it her business to prepare him simple meals three times a day. Besides those necessary interruptions and an occasional walk to the living room window, his place was at the desk, before the typewriter and the clean white pages that he would fill with other worlds.
He preferred living in those other places, the realities he created. They were so much more interesting than the city that was just outside his 16th floor window. In his mind, there were no rules, no conventions, no limits as to what could happen. It was total freedom, and he dove into it everyday, as if finally, he was home.
The typewriter clicked.
“…Cintra held onto the helm. She could see the star system fast approaching. It was a cluster of white lights that sparkled brighter than anything she had ever seen. Moving in and out of the clusters were other space craft, smaller than the one she now maneuvered, smaller and more round, like shooting spheres that had the light-willed movement of bubbles. She was not quite sure which direction to turn. Would the smaller ship carrying her crew and supplies follow her into the cluster of light? Perhaps she should circumvent the stars and arc over them…She heard the phone next to her ring. She picked up the receiver, pulling the cord as far as it would go so she could walk towards the wide glass that was the front windshield of the spacecraft. Before waiting for a voice, she said, ‘Let’s go for it Kurt. Let’s see what lives out here.’ ‘OK Captain.’ She walked towards her seat and hung up the phone, resting it gently in its plastic cradle. She got into the chair and gripped the steering device.”
He pushed hard on the key for “period.” He did it more sharply, more exaggerated than the rest of the paragraph. This was getting good. He nodded to himself, enjoying where the story was taking him. He nodded softly, over and over, a small trance coming over him.
It was how he rested. Images of space craft took the place of words. He saw the dark sky of space, imagined what it would be like to approach a thick cluster of stars that seemed to vibrate a thousand times greater than the most populated city. He let himself feel the tension of the space travelers, the anticipation, the curiosity building as they quickly approached the lights.
His body jerked slightly as he heard the rattle of a key in the door. Without even looking up, he could see the round shape of Mrs. Johnson emerging through the doorway, her thick arm pulling the key from the metal hole. Her pudgy pink hand closed the door, locking the deadbolt, she took just a few steps to the small kitchen left of the door, then reached for the apron she left on a single metal hook. He could hear her humming.
He pulled the paper out of the typewriter, tugging gently on it from both corners so as not to bend it. He re-read the paragraph and found it pleasing, though he thought there would be more details he could add later. He liked the world. He read it again, still missing the one thing that would act like a siren to a reader far in the future.
The cord, the phone. In a world of easy space travel, he had inserted an object bound by the world around him. An object he knew, a thing he recognized. His publisher would glaze over it too, both unable to recognize an object from his unconscious daily assumptions.
He walked over to the window, looking out at the constant traffic of a New York street, where cars remained long and bound by the laws of physics. Technology moved so fast, soon engineers would realize that small, round, bubble cars made more sense. He heard the telephone ring and walked to the small wooden end table. He picked up the receiver, trying to untangle the gray cord as he brought the plastic piece to his ear.

Seconds Without Memory

She wakes from her slumber in a bed of soft synthetic fabric. Like an enveloping cloud, she wakes without thoughts. Location, existence, reasons…they are words without answers. Letters without meaning or a hint of worry. There are no words for bed, no syllables for shelter, no letters strung in a line that reveal the meaning of sleep. She wakes blank and clear, a silent moment of utter stillness. Like the suspended silence that surrounds a tightrope walker, she hangs in absolute nothingness. The clear light of the void is all around, and she feels its softness, its utter lack of sound and movement. The quiet around her is present in every muscle, consuming every cell, enveloping her body like blankets made of vapors.
Then it all comes back, like a flood of anxiety and thoughts, a panic rush of anger and disgruntled memories. Oh yes…I remember the reasons to be mad. I remember everything that is wrong, all the tiny incidents I consider problems…it’s all thick and heavy. There are concrete shapes and form, vivid colors and tangible smells…everything is reduced to its simplest form. There is no battle, the worries take over without a word in protest. They wrap like thick vines around her limbs, nearly suffocating her with their invisible grasp…she nearly forgets there was another way.
The next night she sleeps, she goes to bed a little sad, yet content to close her eyes and drift quietly to the netherworlds. She dreams of mountains, made of rocky sand-colored cliffs that jut from the land. She sees a long vertical flag waving from a resting point high upon the mountain. Wind battered and sun drenched, the torn sides move like tiny red tentacles attached to one greater and more powerful. She dreams of cozy wooden rooms stocked with quilted blankets and a fat raccoon that has burrowed itself in the floorboards among the birds nests that also hide below ground. Her mother introduces her to a self-described healer- the person who may be able to cure her of the raccoon that lumbers through the hallways at night. On the massage table, she remembers she shouldn’t be touched. None other than her master may lay a finger upon her, she remembers, and she watches the reaction of her new-found raccoon healer to these news.
And the girl wakes. It’s dark, only the sound of the leaking faucet calls out in the night. The heater has long since stopped working, and all the pigeons are burrowed somewhere until dawn. She opens her eyes to the darkness, her heart is open in the stillness of pre-dawn. She lays, without words or thoughts, only the mutating shapes of her dreams linger, and even those are quietly evaporating like silver dust on the heavy breath of an approaching monsoon. Her mind is still, for the first time in hours, there is nothing moving, nothing thinking…and then the gates suddenly spring open and she remembers.