3.5 - Keep in Touch

     I am a flower pot. Unless I am something else. The days (is that what we called them?) are running free like a river unbound. Time serves no master and cares not for something like me. Luckily, I do not feel it. I wonder if the others do? Surely not. We aren’t beholden to such matters in our state. Only that which will die feels time, like two strong hands around the throat, slowly tightening. Hmm. That reminds me of something, or, it did remind me of something. The feeling has left me, as so many things have. I knew what I was when I arrived, but I have transcended those barriers. I shift throughout this space, along with the others, exploring the finest details of everything I am not, which is everything, including that which I am. There is incredible beauty in the inanimate, particularly when it isn’t being watched. It moves. Nothing the human eye could perceive, but it moves all the same. I suppose moves may not be the right word. It...yields to the space around it. Giving and never taking. The black marble bookends. The broken handled chest in the corner. The slowly spinning chand-no...wait...that one is one of us. Of course. 

I see them rising in the morning. They bounce and bubble and move with fury. Her name is Jo and his, Forest. They live here, they lived here, they will live here. She is a woodworker, and he is a...hmmm. I don’t remember. He leaves early and comes home early, with some sort of dust around his nails and eyes and in the crook of his neck. She affectionately brushes it clean, in the kitchen, with a white towel. Then she wraps her arms around him and they hold each other, just for a moment, or a day, or a year. He slowly rubs her arm, and I watch as flickering bits of light burst from their skin with the contact. The flickering pieces of light grow as they float up off of their skin, slowly spiraling stars in the solar system of this place until finally, they burst in blinding darkness. They erupt not with light, but with a defeating blackness that blots out the brightest of colors. The space left behind spins in reverse, until it pulls the color back together and reassembles what was once there. They never seem to notice the universe living and dying and living again right above them. 

She fills the apartment with pieces of her work. Some I can feel, some I cannot. She is not confined by her medium, but she uses it to great effect. She has learned to do with other materials, what most only dare to try with wood. In the depths of the night, as he sleeps, and the inanimate bends around them, she radiates waves. They express great disappointment in others. They are curved swells of purple and gray force that begin small, the size of her open eyes staring up at the ceiling, and grow larger as they escape her until they collide with the ceiling and dissipate into granules of sand. Each wave is composed of dozens of vengeful thoughts, for everyone who looked at her work and felt nothing. Everyone who told her to go elsewhere. Some are images of others, some are diatribes signed and addressed, others are biting critiques, but all share a pattern. A disdain for the sun that rises, a sense of injustice, an all-consuming impression of worthlessness in that which isn’t hers. She closes her eyes when he rises to leave, but doesn’t sleep. I can see the waves beneath her eyelids, fighting frantically to escape. By the time she leaves the bed, the sand from the bursting waves has filled the apartment and begun to drain from the window he leaves open in the living room. 

These flowers are nice. I think I will be the flower pot, today, this week, this decade. Yes. It looks out over the dining room table, and they are having guests this evening. New friends. I will enjoy it. Forest is nervous. He is crowned by warping air like a halo, little buzzing bugs that swim through his ears and burst from the top of his head. Perhaps this evening I will just listen and remember. It feels good to do so, once in a while. 

“They said they’re just around the corner,” Forest said, sliding his phone into his pocket, then taking it back out immediately and checking it again. 

“Relax babe, they’ll buzz us when they’re here,” Jo said, lifting something from the oven. “Can you get the salad out of the fridge and unwrap it? I made some of that dressing you love too, it’s in the door of the fridge.” 

“I was hoping you would!” Forest said, quickly swinging the fridge open and picking up the glass bottle of dressing. “I’ve been telling Andrew about it, he’s excited to try it.” 

He turned and sat the dressing on the island, stared for a moment, then opened the fridge and took the salad out. 

“Do you think this is gonna be enough?” Jo said, moving to the side and motioning to the casserole she had placed on the stovetop. “It’s supposed to serve six, but it seems small.” 

Forest tossed the plastic wrap from the salad into the trashcan and glanced at the casserole briefly. 

“I think it’s plenty. Besides, they’re bringing a side dish,” he said. He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her. “I’m so glad we’re having them over. It’s been too long.” 

“I know, I’ve been getting so antsy,” she said, sliding off her oven mitts and brushing a stray curl from his face. “They’re perfect.” 

She gently pulled his hands away and grabbed a stack of plates, pale blue with silver patterns. She walked into the dining room and laid them out at each chair, then straightened the centerpiece of the table. A glass dome, set into a thick piece of hard maple. Inside of the glass dome was a small wooden frame, the size of a deck of cards. Pulled tight across the wooden frame was a square of tanned hide, painted as The Tower tarot. A stone tower in the sea with smoke pouring from the three windows, and clouds crowding over the sun above. A harsh buzz rang out through the apartment. 

“There they are!” Forest said, excitedly moving to the intercom and buzzing the door open. Their apartment was on the fifth floor, so it would still be a moment before Andrew and Hayley arrived. 

“Are you ready?” he asked, staring at Jo with a sudden intensity. “No backing out now.” 

She smiled at him. 

“I couldn’t be more ready.” she walked around the table and propped open the record player and began playing the Chava Alberstein vinyl that was waiting. Piano and flute filled the apartment, quickly followed by an enchanting voice. Jo spun, slowly, with one arm outstretched. Forest stood with arms crossed by the door, a wide smile on his face, watching her. Her eyes were closed, and her head swung back and forth as the violin broke through to the foreground. Forest tapped his foot in rhythm with the building amalgam of instruments, leaning his head back against the wall without looking away from her. They remained in their trance for another minute, before a knock on the door broke them from their revelry. Jo immediately resumed a composed stance by the kitchen counter, and Forest kicked up from the wall and pulled the door open. 

There they stood. Andrew and Hayley, the first guests in over three months. They were beautiful, each in their own nonchalant way. They carried themselves with great indifference as if they were merely sculptures made living. Andrew was tall enough to feel compelled to duck through the doorway, after ushering Hayley through who embraced Forest and then Jo in rapid succession, with a bottle of wine in each hand. Andrew bellowed a hello to the two in his voice carved from a deep well, setting down something wrapped in cloth on the counter and throwing an arm around Forest, then Jo. 

“We brought our homemade bread, I hope that’s okay,”  he said. “It smells amazing in here!” 

“Thank you,” Jo said. “It’s an old casserole recipe from my momma. I hope there’s enough.”

“I’m sure there will be,” Hayley said. The words tumbled through the air as effortlessly and delicately as scotch poured into a glass by a masterful hand. “We had a big lunch at a spot in Canal Park this afternoon, so we won’t be greedy.” 

“Please, come in, come in!” Forest said, motioning them out of the small kitchen by the door. “Let me give you the tour.” 

They entered the dining room and Andrew gasped before Forest could say anything. He pointed up at the chandelier above the table. A ring of polished white bone inset with pale lights and bound together with thin rings of black walnut. It hung from a thick rope tied to a loop in the ceiling. 

“That is an incredible piece!” he said. “Jo, is that you?” 

Jo smiled and nodded. 

“With a lot of help from a friend, but yes, that’s one of mine,” she said. 

“You are so talented,” Hayley said, shaking her head, then squeezing Andrew’s arm. “It’s unbelievable.” 

“That is certainly the centerpiece,” Andrew said, giving them a moment to absorb it. Once they were satisfied, he showed the living room and his collection of Woody Allen films, pointed out where the bathroom was, and showed off the paltry bedroom in comparison to the other carefully curated rooms.

“Enough of the tour, let’s eat before this gets cold!” Jo called from the kitchen, moving the casserole onto the table alongside the salad and bread. 

I am The Tower. At least I am now. I smolder from the inside with the passion I bear. Or bore. They say that nothing lasts forever but I do not believe forever will come, for me. I am perfect, in my way of being. They gather around me to worship and roar and murder and feast and live. I see it all from my glass ocean. There is something else I see because I never move like the others. They fly about with eagerness, blustering through every resting molecule, but not I. I stay where I was put, where I will be put, and I listen. There is a sound from the record player. No. There is a sound from behind the record player. Beyond the wall. It is faint and not of me, or the rest of us, but I hear it. It was a boy at one point, now an old man, soon to be one of us. He is sad, weeping without tears. He is not here but in some far off land, not too distant from our own. I think that is why he can see us. He looks into me, and hears me, and knows me. I try to catch him hurtling by like an asteroid, but he pulls back. There is great fear in him that I cannot unravel, and pain layered upon thousands of years. Or dozens...it is difficult to tell from here. The others do not know him because they are bad listeners, only hearing the artisan and her muse. But this evening they hear more, for the first time in months, years, millennia. 

There are new ones here tonight, gathered around me. They have come willingly. I see eagerness wrapped around their bodies in tangling wires of fluctuating space. It distorts them, slightly, in mutating raptures they flourish in, but it is not them. Or I suppose it is, but not what they once were. 

He is much larger than she, but the core of him is shrinking down at the table. It is not fear, but doubt that pressures his being with quick volleys of unraveling coldness. They unfold towards him, slow at first but quicker as they press down, then curl back up in response to his chastisement of them. It seems terribly stressful to maintain, but he does it with ease. 

She bears no such doubt. Instead, she is lashed to disinterest. Thick vines pull from her back towards the sky, or any space they can reach. They blister with popping red bubbles and corrode the air around them into a vaporous shimmering wind.

I know why they are here. There is only one reason they are ever here, have ever been here, I was ever here. They feast and drink, yes. They talk for years...no...hours perhaps. It is fine, and I listen, but it is meaningless to them, and most of all to me. I see the others from time to time, burst out from their hiding places to examine something new, or old. One of us is staying quite still, with the flowers, but the rest flutter about like moths. The conversation begins to turn towards the path it was destined for. First, they speak of the one above me, and then of me. I bask in it, the attention. I feel every word pass through me like beams of sunlight. They speak of my skin, my paint, my frame, every inch of me. They move on, and I hate them for it, but it will be my moment again, one day. 

They speak of the carving on the bookshelf, but that one is abandoned, forgotten by its own. They don’t realize. They move on to the painting, hanging on the wall in the hallway. We don’t speak to that one. Something failed to coalesce in them, and now they scream when they are awake. Thankfully they are mostly dead, and only awake for minutes at a time. Next, they talk about the tattoo on Forest’s arm. It is a planet, or thousands of them, or perhaps just a ball. It is difficult for me to comprehend it, but it is one of us. I do not know how, but it is. They are quiet, only venturing out when he is asleep, but I’ve spoken with them I think. 

The conversation dulls, after that. Most of us scurry off in different directions, except for the one in the flower pot. They stay with me and listen to what happens next. Unlike the rest of us, we know how this will go. We prepare to welcome them. 

“So,” Jo says, swirling the last bit of wine in her glass. “What do you think?” 

Andrew leans back in his chair with one hand on his belly and the other holding Hayley’s. She sits upright, holding a glass of wine still half full. Forest twists off the lid of the second bottle and pours himself another glass. 

“It is up to you, of course,” he says and takes a heavy gulp.

“We knew before we came here what our answer would be,” Andrew said. “We would love it. We love you two, and we think this friendship could last a lifetime.” 

Hayley nodded and squeezed his hand.  

“Andrew is right,” she said. “We’re so glad we found you. After moving here, we didn’t know if we’d make any friends and then there you are. Like angels. We just...I don’t know, we have so much in common. There are so many things I know you’ll feel the same way about before I even bring them up. Honestly just being around you two feels comfortable. It’s like family. Really.” 

Forest fell back in his chair and gasped, putting a hand over his heart. 

“Ugh! Stop! You two are killing me,” he said. “But seriously, we feel the same. Andrew, when you started working with me, I’m gonna be honest, I wasn’t sure.” 

They all laughed. 

“But after our first full shift together, ask Jo she can confirm this, I came home and said ‘this Andrew guy isn’t half bad.’ Little did I know that you would become one of my dearest friends.” 

Andrew smiled and winked at Forest. 

“It’s true,” Jo said. “And when we first met up at the bar, I was unsure of whether or not you and I-she motioned to Hayley-would have much to talk about. But think back on how quickly we hit it off! I’ve never felt that close to someone the first time meeting them. Not even this guy.” 

She elbowed Forest in the side. 

“I’m really happy we’re finally doing this, it took too long,” she said. “We have two other questions for y’all.” 

Andrew looked excitedly at Hayley and sat up in his seat. 

“I hope these are the questions we’re expecting,” he said. 

“Well, the first one is, what would you like to be?” Jo asked. 

Hayley giggled. 

“I told you they would ask,” she said. She pointed at the centerpiece of the table. “I love this piece. Anything similar would be spectacular.” 

Andrew smiled at her, and then took a moment to think. 

“The painting in the hallway really spoke to me earlier,” he said. “I think I’m leaning towards something like that.” 

“Thank you, Andrew,” Jo said, with a sigh of relief. “I have been wanting to take a second pass at something like that for a long time. This is a fantastic opportunity. And Hayley, I can absolutely do that for you. I have a perfect blueprint in my head for it already.” 

“Okay, that’s one question down, now for the other,” Forest said. “This one tends to be a little more difficult for folks, but I don't think you two will have much trouble with it.” 

“Bring it on,” Andrew said. “We’re plenty prepared.” 

“How do you want to die?” Forest asked. “We have done strangulation, slitting of the throat, and poison. We’re open to bludgeoning or stabbing, but we just aren’t as experienced with those two.” 

Andrew and Hayley smiled at each other. 

The flowers shake in the air above me, and I feel bits of them fall, like a dull rain. I have stayed here for months it seems, but if the one on the table can stay there as long as they do, so can I. Their guests are still here, but time is winding down. Or up. The air has become thick, and the plants around me are absorbing the bounty of moisture. Everything is feasting, tonight. The two guests sit back in the chairs, as Jo spreads plastic around them, and loops it around their necks. One of them is layered in a fabric of deep orange space, as calm as a sunset. It covers her from head to toe. I can barely see her through it. The other, however, is something I can’t quite comprehend. There are bulbs of light dotted along his body that pulse independent of one another. A few on his back that I can see through his chest, others along his shoulders, one over his heart, and a few more around his head. They are lashed together by a net of air thrown over him, restricting his movement. I cannot feel him at all. He seems to have gone vacant, in the past few moments, but he is still there, at the same time. Forest comes back from the kitchen with a large knife and stands behind them both. They, all four, are smiling, and Jo is holding Hayley’s hand. Forest puts his hand on Andrew’s shoulder and squeezes. The next few moments are quiet but are a torrent of movement. There is a part of me, somewhere, that flinches. I do not remember it, but I feel it. Somewhere, deep in my memory. 

Days pass. Or years. Or, more likely based on what I know of Jo’s process, months. The centerpiece of the table is shifted, and now a second joins it. A similar piece of hard maple, with an identical glass dome atop it. Inside is the same frame, the size of a deck of cards, with painted hide, stretched over it. I leave the flower pot to look at it, the first time I have since that night. A woman stands proud on a rocky cliff. At her feet is a dog, on its hind legs, looking up at her. She holds a white flower in one hand, and in the other, she holds a bindle over her shoulder. She is dressed in gold and red, covered in wildflower patterns and suns. I stare at it for a long time, before I realize that it is upside down. Or rather, I realize that I am upside down, and when I am right-side-up, it is upside down. I wonder if it’s supposed to be like that. Of course, it is. She wouldn’t have made it this way if it wasn’t. 

Another day, year, month pass before I hear a hammering in the hallway. I leave my flower-topped home to see the new piece. It hangs next to the painting already there, the one we don’t understand. I stare at it for a long time, but I cannot perceive it. There is nothing there, to me. Just an empty frame. I don’t fully understand the rhythms of the air around it, but they manifest in violent bursts like a kind of storm. It hates itself. It stands in passionate revolt to its own being, it seems. I leave it and return to my flowers. I will not visit that hallway, anymore. It is a dark place.  

A blink of time passes before another one of us appears, spiraling out of the new centerpiece. It is joyous, like most of us were when we came to, but unsure of why. I don’t think we understand. I do not understand. There are many of us, now, and more each year. But we are forgotten, except by each other. I do not know what this existence is. I am afraid of what I cannot remember. I am afraid of what I am not. I am afraid of these two, that live here, and I do not know why. He doesn’t pay attention to us, but I know that he senses us. He will sometimes move out of the way if one of us is roaming free. I can see in his eyes that he knows us, but he chooses not to remember. There is an energy around him that lashes out in chaotic fits. He has no control over it. She can see me, I think, and when she looks, I feel the space between us rip apart into a thousand dimensions and reform slowly in a new way. Nothing she leaves behind is the same. I am not the same. She hates the ones in the hallway, but some force is shackling them to her. She hurts them, sometimes, when she grows tired of lying sleepless in bed. Forest doesn’t hear them, but I do. Howling in pain. I am too afraid to look. The longer I am here, the longer I feel that I am nothing. Not a being, but lack thereof. A void of a human, somehow, like an empty vessel. Or what was in the vessel. Whatever I am, I do not matter to these two. They only keep me for what I once was.