Chasing the Moon

by a human with a dog face. Or the swelling and contraction of the pavement under her feet in a nearly imperceptible way, as if it were built on the back of a giant, slumbering monster.

That was what was so maddening. She couldn’t rule out any possibilities now. She’d never been a contemplative soul. Like most people, she had usually been too busy living her day-today life to dwell on deeper mysteries that she was certain she’d never understand anyway. She had just taken most things on faith and trusted that someone would figure it out.

Now she’d discovered the human race was little more than a mass of microbes squirming on a thin slice of reality they foolishly labeled “the universe.” The revelation that there was nothing special about humanity didn’t shock her. Not specifically. She’d always been cynical about that sort of thing. The idea that reality was all too big to even quantify in any meaningful way didn’t disturb her much either. Except, deep down, she’d assumed there was some inherent logic at work. Like ricocheting molecules congealing into planets and stars, dogs and cats. At least that made sense, even if it w’t very comforting. At least it put things in neat little boxes with neat little labels that she didn’t always understand but could rely on in terms of familiarity.

Too bad it had all turned out to be bullshit.

Instead she found herself in a world where everything was possible, without a mental filing cabinet into which she could collate her perceptions. Everything was one giant heap, too big to be swept under the rug, too noisy to shut the door on.

Too much imagination had never been a concern for Diana, but with her new perceptions a switch had been flipped. She envisioned the universe as being run by tremendous, godlike butterflies looking down on their creation and debating whether it was shiny enough to keep or whether they should just throw it away and start again. She pictured everything as a dream. Her dream. A never-ending fantasy that would start all over once she died. Over and over again. Or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe she was just a phantom in someone else’s fantasy world. Hell, she might have been a robot for all she knew.

Every possibility, no matter how disturbing, inconceivable, or downright stupid seemed feasible now. She cursed every single Twilight Zone episode she’d seen for planting the seeds of schizophrenia in her brain. Although it wasn’t technically mental illness if you were more aware, your sense of reality more expanded. Or maybe it was. Maybe all this was just her addled mind snapping, and she was just alert enough to realize it. She wondered whether you could be crazy and know it at the same time. Then she got pissed when she realized any answer she reached would be suspect by its very nature.

Diana mumbled to herself, targeting the first object for her annoyance that came to mind. “Screw you, Rod Serling.”

She paused, stopping before her apartment building. She hadn’t meant to come back here. She’d merely been walking without paying attention.

But here she was.

There was something comforting about the place. Something terrifying. Most terrifying was how comforting she found it. Like she belonged here now.

She entered the building, and everything suddenly felt better. The world outside was a strange, monstrous realm. The world inside was just as strange. So why did she find it less bizarre, less jarring?

The door to West’s apartment opened, and he stuck his head out. “Hey, Number Five. Can you bring me that package on the stoop?”

Having just passed the stoop, she hadn’t noticed a package. A glance over her shoulder showed a box wrapped in brown paper sitting behind her. She couldn’t have entered without tripping over it.

“Hurry it up, Number Five,” said West.

When Diana turned to pick up the package, it had disappeared. She walked back to the open apartment door and said, “It’s gone.”

“Better not be,” replied West with a snort.

From her vantage point the package was back in iplace. She walked toward it, each step taken with care and deliberation. With each step the package became lighter and lighter until it was transparent—then, just when she was within reach, it faded away. She walked back down the hallway, and when she reached West’s door the package was back.

He swaggered over to her. “Well, where is it?”

“It keeps disappearing.”

“Are you thinking about something else when you reach for it?”

“Something else?”

West’s heavy eyebrows furrowed. “You can’t think about picking up the package while you’re picking up the package. It’ll hear you coming that way.”

She nodded, more to herself than to him. “Maybe it’d be easier if you just got it yourself.”

He frowned. “That’s no good. It knows me too well. Can smell me from a mile away.”

So could she, but she refrained from suggesting a bath might be in order.

“If you don’t get that package, every living thing in Barcelona is going to die,” said West.

She believed him. Not just because she was in a state of mind to believe anything and everything, but because he said it so matter-of-factly, as if commenting on an annoying weather prediction. Oh, darn, the picnic is going to be ruined. Fiddledee-dee.

He vanished into his darkened apartment.

Diana decided that if she could save everyone in Barcelona, then at least she could say she’d done something worthwhile with her life. She moved toward the package.

It vanished.

Damn. It was onto her.

West’s voice came from the darkness. “Three minutes.”

“I’m working on it,” she called back.

“Well, it’s no problem. Not like anyone of any great importance is in Barcelona or anything. Not like the entire future of the human race hinges on the fate of one Spanish city.”

She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. West’s delivery was flat, and her gauge of reality was hardly reliable.

She stuck her hands in her pockets, whistled a jaunty tune, and sauntered toward the package. She attempted to occupy her mind with thoughts of turtles and jelly doughnuts. Why turtles and jelly doughnuts? She didn’t have a clue. Just the first two things that popped into her head. Out of all the things in her expanding universe, she questioned what these two objects said about her. It wasn’t that they were bad. It was just that they seemed an odd pairing, two things that didn’t go together. And she wondered what it said about her perceptions and logic that these were the two things that sprang to her mind as if they were the most natural combination in the world.

“Aha!”

Diana pounced on the package. It vibrated in her hands as if trying to vanish, but she held tight. Her distracting thoughts had worked. Almost too well, as she must’ve wasted a good minute or two standing beside the package before grabbing it, but she had it now.

“Nineteen seconds,” called West.

She ran in and handed him the paper-wrapped box. He took it and set it on a shelf beside several other identical boxes.

“Hummph,” said West. “Didn’t think you’d make it.”

She said, “So what about Barcelona?”

“What about it?”

“Is it going to be okay?”

“Should hold for another day or two,” replied West.

He shuffled over to an overstuffed couch and collapsed into it. “Something I can do for you, Number Five?”

She realized she was standing in West’s apartment, a shadowy realm in perpetual twilight. The decor, what she could see of it, was straight out of the seventies. The brightest thing in the room was a unusually large lava lamp that cast a greenish glow. The wax inside swirled in strange patterns. If she squinted just right, she thought she saw an eye floating somewhere within, and it glared at her.