Combinatorics Two

1
I see carefully cultivated fields on terraced land and complex irrigation systems running throughout, and little wooden platforms decorate the ponds where the trail runs out. Only as I pass the doors of the mall do I remember, they’re oval shaped like eggs but larger, semi-translucent, and lined in rows like a carton, but they're not a full dozen. We take a seat near the entrance, having brought the camper into the dank valley and parked it a good distance from the gathering itself. She crumples back into the floor and falls asleep. She sees me I think but keeps walking. Where have you been? How could these delicate creatures ever expect to survive in the lower world? Behind us, many of those still moving down the trail stop to look up as the stormy black hole pulsates. I only barely touched the objects but my hands are already dried out and cracking from the contact. They’re not from here. Night turns to day and the stale taste of a wasted evening lingers on every beer can and smoldering cigarette. The sun is barely risen. The empty day-lit house is filled in this way with mostly unfamiliar people by night fall. It’s a grid laid out in colorful squares, each with its own inscrutable designation.

2
Outsiders begin to visit the sanctuary. The native creatures being so small have no difficultly maneuvering these obstacles, but I am not this character and this is only a movie. They’re also draped in a fine gauze or netting of gossamer, barely visible. The passage of people along the main trail is so rapid and chaotic I seek refuge in the camper and my father gives me a look of combined envy and ridicule. I call to her, asking are we still dreaming?! and then there is nothing but a long colorful train of sunshades and carts heading down the mountain, like some Tibetan convoy moving away from Lhasa. There is no way around their caravan on these narrow switchbacks. Then the singularity storm spews a black stream of wailing formlessness at the sanctuary in the clouds. I show him my hands. He turns back once to look at me and then he keeps running. So few familiar faces amidst the horde. I’m exhausted. It occurs to me again perhaps I’m still dreaming, but the abandon with which these people go about their evening is hued by a deeper despair. We see that each square in the grid beneath our feet corresponds to a period of our lives as well as a point in the development of mankind generally.

3
The natives’ appearance begins to change, and the human visitors are too heavy to step across the panels without grabbing on to the spiky stalks that grow out of them. Unfortunately, the roommates and friends I came with were just consumed by the storm. I’m tempted to handle them. She looks to me sympathetically, asks me “Where did your friend go?” Through these windows I can observe all that goes on outside. I scale the side of the truck with violent intent, then speak inarticulately to her about my dreams and how confused I am at the moment. His eyes are so blood shot, but I know he’s not drunk. Each dark spirit finds a person on the path, crashing into them. We move into the mall where before it was sunny, but now a mist settles all around, beginning to obscure my view. On our way out I wake the girl, but I don’t give it a second thought. In the middle of the largest wall of the house, in plain sight – I realize now it has been there all along – is a high-definition screen showing the same jumble of signals I’ve been hearing in my head. She moves from square to square describing our movement along the game board.

4
Slowly they begin to dismantle the sanctuary, preparing for an exodus. I wont let my fellow travelers rest or slow down though, as one, another, and then the last one, dearest to me, gets hit by the swooping banshee coming out of the storm, as I run to her yelling. They project a facsimile of their own spatial relation before the handler, a few feet in front of him. I didn’t notice before, but my friend has disappeared. Everything's reduced to indecipherable madness, a carnival of faces blurring together and passing down the main trail. Then I gain access to the cab where from above I can see a large red-haired man at the wheel. My disheveled state says more than enough. I leave the council and day breaks to the east. The magnificent sight of the singularity is paralyzing. I meet man along the way who doesn’t speak my language. She tries to pull me toward her. Cars pass by at great speeds for our quiet little neighborhood, cars of a sort uncommon in this bourgie suburb, fragmented unrelated sound bites at times, and then multiple overlapped signals. She reaches a particular square right in front of me and stops.

5
A small dark hole appears above the village, and only I know the horror that awaits the sanctuary. She transforms before my eyes into just another dull humanoid that evidently doesn’t remember me. Since it is much bigger than its model, the movement performed with the hands is sped up greatly and the projection shimmers and sparkles in shifting interrelations. A couple runs toward the exit. Having regained a little control I exit the vehicle. Ahead Denny avenue is blocked off by police. She’s not so interested in talking to me as she seemed when we had class together at Evergreen. On her trade blanket is a small rectangular box. I stand transfixed until the turtle man gently tugs at my sleeve. He seems to be the only one still willing to interact with a stranger. The broken down cars are shoddily repaired, I turn to a man next to me and ask him where are we? After a moment I ask her why it is we have not moved beyond this square.

6
He wears the white robe and bandanna of an apprentice. They put up protest, but I take off. I can see that my friend gets great pleasure from manipulating these silicon egg projectors. Then a few more. The side of the valley now has lights, electricity. We take a detour onto eighth, finding ourselves in an unfamiliar alley. Across the street at the baptist neighbors’ place a ruckus has broken out. Inside is a folded handkerchief with small rocks and gems around the edge. He offers me something in his hand, cars that are combinations of different models, driven recklessly by people I’ve never seen here. Why must that screen be there and why can’t we turn it off?!

7
He goes through each of the steps without the characteristic impatience of lowlanders, but where the black hole over the village was once small enough to ignore, now one of the evil creatures to the left is wearing a tuxedo. I try it out but only touch it briefly, not sure of the effect of such devices. People frantically run out of the building, then I see it’s actually just trees around a house. At the far end of the alley red and blue lights play on the bricks and people run toward us from there. He’s still not around, but I hear voices in the house. The price tag reads: one hundred dollars. Do I risk infection? He smiles and lights a red candle, placing it carefully on the dining room table.

8
I am so enrapt by the movie I consider using that last line as my next face book profile update. Now it looms huge, consuming the entire horizon, and everyone is eager to leave. I pass through nonchalantly, locating an exit, running toward home. Where before there were only the ones next to me on the curb, now I see they are growing everywhere across the mall parking lot; gossamer webbing slowly overtakes the place. The viral threat is finally announced over the intercom. But I still rent a room here! We run with them to the sound of voices I don’t know and a radio dial spun quickly. Then I offer her a twenty. She takes it.

9
Our descent is complicated by a series of long steep switch backs lined with the slow moving carts and wagons full of native creatures making their own escape attempt. The last bit of trail dissolves, the sky overhead zooms into a visible ceiling, and we are returned to our normal size. How did I become the character of this movie? But it’s just patches of eggs and gossamer netting all over the lot..? My motor cycle is parked out front, sirens are on all sides, and shadows also are cast on the wall like people, and then become people. I spread the numinous cloth I bought out beneath the shade of a low hung canvass desert tent, entering the next dream.