the Plateau. He had taken me to a path, one branch leading east and the other south. He surveyed the two directions. There was nothing but sky on the horizon. Not a man could be seen. He turned toward me, and I tired to share my emptiness with him. He could at least know that he was leading one like himself. He handed me a package. Not understanding I took it. “There are dates, bread, sugar. You can hold out for two days. Here are a thousand francs too,” he said, “Now look there’s’ the way to Tinguit. You have a two-hour walk. At Tinguit you’ll find the administration and the police. They are expecting you.” He took my elbow and turned me rather roughly towards the south. “That’s the trail across the Plateau. In a day’s walk from here you will find the pasturelands and the first nomads. They’ll take you and shelter according to their law.”
I thought I should tell him that I would be saved by my family if I went east. I wanted him to know that it was not too late to avoid action, which will only take us form the things we love. That we could hold onto our routines and not have war. Because when war comes, it will eventually call us to its service. “Listen,” I began.
“No, be quiet,” He said. And he was still the man with the gun, even if he did not believe in that which had given the gun to him. He waked away. I headed east. I saw him look at me with some something like horror.
I laughed, but I knew he could not hear, in fact could not hear when he had been standing besides me. I was walking to a temporary peace, but war would swallow us up. The day would come when I would believe and he would believe, and an unseen hand will lift all the chess pieces on the board, and our silent days of waiting and our nights of dreaming our own strange games would end.
THE JOY OF COLA
It was Austin, Texas, but it could have been anywhere in the shadow worlds.
The crazy kids were the same age as Bill. They lived across the street in the dirtiest worst smelling house he had ever seen., It had a graywater system that meant they used their bathwater to poop in, and they only flushed when there was a lot of poop and the whole damn house smelled like ma privy. The kids were activists. The leader of the pack was some girl that got books for prisoners. Project Inside Out or Upside Down or some damn thing. Not educational books, books by Stephen King and murder mysteries. Yeah those guys need that. They were in prison, they aren’t supposed to read.
Bill never had any damn time to read. He worked for $10.00 an hour which meant he could pay his mortgage, buy his diabetes medicine and have basic cable. He used to read. The girl had come by yesterday asking him for used paperbacks. He had offered her
He plopped down in his cheap (bur clean!) recliner and watched TV. It was from another planet where you could achieve bliss by drinking Pepsi. There was this girl with a pierced navel dancing. It was the girl from across the street. He had seen that navel. She must be rich. Some trendy star that was slumming in the gray water swamp. The Joy of Pepsi. He thought about jacking off to the image, but was too tired and just went to sleep.The next morning he had a plan. He would kidnap the girl, and hold her hostage to Pepsi. He wouldn’t be hard ass about it. He didn’t want her to suffer. For the first time in three years he called in sick, and then he went to New Atlantis Used Books and bought all of the Stephen King and Rex Hull books. He read the sections on kidnapping in the Hull books and bought the duct tape. He put the soap in the sock and then he put a letter in their mailbox asking that Brittany drop by he had books for her. Then he went out and bought a case of Pepsi and one of Pepsi Light.
It was four in the afternoon when she came by. Her long red hair was done up in the filthiest dreds he had ever seen. A little pus oozed out around her navel ring.
“Come in.” he said, “The books are in the back.”
She followed him back to his bedroom, which no woman had done in two years. He pulled the sock form one pocket and the soap from another pocket and put the soap in the sock. She crossed the threshold and he swung.
She didn’t have the decency to fall down, just yelled. The filth and ropes of her hair probably softened the blow. He had to swing twice (and twice as hard ) to knock her out,. She had been beginning to turn, so the last blow hit just above her left eye and broke the skin. She was a vegan, so she didn’t weigh much. He picked her up and put her in the old straight back chair that had belonged to his grandmother. He thought of it as the only nice thing that he owned, not understanding it had been poor people’s furniture when she had bought it during the great depression.
He taped a funnel to her mouth so he would be to pour in the Pepsi. Then he tied a rope around her to be extra sure she couldn’t escape, when she came to.
He figured it would be a bad idea to call from home. So he went to the 7-11. Not the close 7-11, he wasn’t that dumb. He carried a can of Pepsi with him to call the 1-800 number for questions or concerns.
The phone tree presented him with many options: * For an extension; 1 For information about products, 2 For an explanation of how coke is different than Pepsi; 4 How to buy Pepsi products; 5 How to tell if you were a member of the Pepsi generation; 6 How to register complaints against Pepsi truck drivers; 7 How to register complaints about dead mice in bottles; 8 How to register complaints about other foreign objects in bottles; 9 How to present claim about kidnapping Brittany Spears. He pushed 9.
“Sorry, but our records show that Ms. Spears has not been kidnapped today, so we can not process kidnapping claims.”
The recorded voice crushed Bill. He could not believe it. Perhaps he had been too hasty, perhaps there were other young women with pierced navels. He had missed a day of work in tight economy, which wasn’t good, and he should probably have to let the girl go. Keeping for a sex-slave would mean cleaning and feeding her. He hadn’t even let her go to the bathroom. Probably if he let her use his clean good-smelling bathroom she would be so happy that she would forget the little kidnapping incident.
He felt really tired and victimized by the time he got home. He wanted to nap, but decided to let the girl go.
She looked mad, so he through he would talk to her and then let her go to the bathroom, and then everything would be OK.
“Look,” he said. “I know you probably aren’t very happy right now. But I’ll give you the books and I’m going to let you poop in my bathroom, and everything will be swell. I had a little senior moment and I thought you were Brittany Spears.”
When he said Brittany Spears, her eyes softened and see looked sad.
He pulled the duct tape from her mouth.
“I am Brittany Spears.” She said.
“No. The phone message says you’re not.”
“That’s because I have been out of circulation long enough, shit-head.” She said affectionately. “Just keep me for a few more hours and you can get a quarter mil.”
“It’s not really money that I want.” Said Bill.
“I know, baby.” She said, “Can you say what you really want?”
“I. I. I. Well money would make it better.” Bill finally said.
“That’s because money partakes of the Real.” Said Brittany.
“What I really want is someone to love me enough to give me used Stephen King books.”
“I Love you. I so Love this world that I send images of the Real World I come from into it.”
“I don’t understand.” Said Bill.
“Here put your head on shoulder and I will tell about the Real World.”
Bill put his head on her shoulder, which wasn’t easy since he kneel down by the chair she was tied in. And so Brittany told Bill of the Real World. In the Real World people danced when they drank a good beverage. Everyone was healthy and good looking. Cars drove through endless fields on bright starry nights. Little lizards helped you get car insurance, and little dogs helped you have great intercultural dining experiences, and everyplace was really and truly Disneyland.
“People from your world discovered the Real World when they invented television. There are no TV channels,. No broadcasting. We came up with those myths, so you wouldn’t feel bad watching the Real World. The Real World is commercials.”
“But why would you ever leave?”
