We programmed our drift scanner to alert us if a time viaduct should pop up near the event horizon.  The idea was to try to get back to the galaxies of the past before the system was overthrown, and then to implement a series of gravity shock stimulations whereby we could slip in under cover of "no space" and alter the outcome of that history, perhaps in a way that would shift their future so our present caper would be assured of success.
      Personally, I’m not into politics—so I decided to take a stroll on the ship’s upper esplanade, catch some starfire, some astral breeze, perhaps a reversal or two.  (A reversal’s always a gas.  First there’s a bang, then an intersection, then all these people walking backwards, talking backwards, eating backwards.  Things have to be just right though or you get frozen and blanked, and that’s no fun at all.)
      Anyway, I’m up on the esplanade looking out at a few binaries playing Humpty Dumpty when I see this huge cradle of liquid light splash against the glass sky-panels and shatter everything.  I got blown out into a tube of goo and felt like a breathing surfboard.  Wowy was I ever zippin’ along!  My whole life flashed before me, but I didn’t recognize any of it.  Plugging the field trace sensor into my power pack was a trick.  Calculations showed I was spiraling through a worm-hole overlay toward the ER-5 sector, an area known to have absolutely nothing to do with anything.  I hugged my dumplings and gulped.....  ....   ...    ..
 

      How I came to be strapped to this barge of junk is beyond me.  A declivity in my aura may have been responsible.  Or a tantrum in my karma.  Too much spunk in my jowls has perked hives on some spines, but who the hell knows me in this neck of the woods?
      Surrounded by abandoned anatomies I notice I’m slipping toward a mega-follicle.  This hole’s seen better days.  The hair must’ve been jettisoned ages ago!  Just as I’m about to topple into bald thoughts a meteorite lobotomy bursts my clamps.  What a kick!  I’m free.  I elect to wiggle to a hatchway.
      The hatch-lock mechanism is full of bugs, but the wall dissolves anyway and I’m swept in by the swarming voices of angry gnats or hundreds of toll call operators being strangled over a lousy connection, then I’m carried by dull music across a dark continent too slimy for even vagabond shut-eye.  Optical effects vary from stunning holographic jive to such amorphous zilch you wouldn’t believe.  Some huge spatula of light flips me like a pancake—ah!  Ahhh, to be a specimen for minds greater than my own!  Hibernate my martyrdom.  Keep me whistling and well fed—whoever you are!
      A foul dirge marks my ungainly descent into the acropolis.  As I tumble past the welcoming committee I make a note in my logbook that these beings are composed of the memories of sound and color—no, not even memories, intentions, the intention of making a sound, the intention of the appearance of a color.  You can tell they are curious about me because later a lot of yellow squeaking will be floating around.  If I could see into the future, peek in on sights and sounds to come, I could tell, for instance, whether these beings have fortitude, courage, magnanimity, decorum and culinary beneficence, or whether they are a breed of pugnacious twerps with no guts but what shit is good for.
      The decontamination process consists of riding me around an amphitheater on a cloud of emotional outbursts.  I’m drenched first in "feeling giddy," then in "would you like to come up for a drink," then in "turn that damn thing off before I chuck it out the window," then in, "I told you we weren’t supposed to take that second left back there—the instructions say after the gas station," and finally in "bring that doggie down li’l Charlie—tha’s right—now how ‘bout fixin’ us some beans!"
      After being cleansed I adjust my multi-dimensional savoir faire and wait for who knows what.
      I don’t know whether it’s just my head or my whole body, but I am escorted to the banquet by a fleshy thought, very breast-in-the-mouth-like.
      "This way, sir," sighs the fleshy thought.
      I follow without ado.
      Instead of a door, I am shown soft music and am asked to open it—a very synaesthetic aperture I must say.  When I open the music several high intentions of sound and color invite me into the becoming younger.  This is no "room!"  There is no "table" to sit at and converse cheerily with "others."  This seems forever, always new over and over.  I’m amuck!  Where are the resemblances?
      I’d tell you more but from here on out has nothing to do with anything.

 
 
 

R Bartkowech

Copyright © 2000 by R Bartkowech