Bill Cheng's Blog, page 8

There’s a memory I have. Something I’ll take out now and again and hold up to the...

There’s a memory I have.  Something I’ll take out now and again and hold up to the light.  There’s me and Rita and the kids on our way to the Grand Canyon.  We stopped for a couple nights at this travel lodge.  I remember being out by the pool and watching Cara do backflips, slipping under the water.  Rita would lay next to me and feed me drinks and we’d get quietly drunk.  The way I remember it, the water is blue and green and not quite right, and the kids’ lips are turning purple and their skin is all gooseflesh.  Everyone was happy then and I was a hero for finding this place.  It’s a good memory and it’s taken me a long time to allow myself its comfort.  I have done evil.  I know that now.  But we are not who we were, nor have we arrived at who we will be.  This is what I’ve learned to believe.  This is what I must believe to continue.  

once we were like you: we had jobs, apartments; there were people we knew and places we’d...

once we were like you: we had jobs, apartments; there were people we knew and places we’d frequent, and every day laid itself out, a variation on the one before it.  There were the walls, and the lanes of traffic, and the noise of people and places, and the great convulsions of our living and dying pulsing through the archways and columns and the hallowed steps.  And we lived through our days, happy or sad or both, never recognizing the place between spaces, the shadowland.  A world captured in half-light.  There are many gates into the second city– no two, the same.  One day I turned a corner I’d gone down for many years– I knew it, what it looked like, the feel of its concrete under my shoes– and I came to a place I could not recognize.  There was a wall and on the wall a sign, and when I turned around the street had changed behind me.  I could not find my way  to where I’d started. Now I live in the second city– an in-between country, where the lost ones live and wait for prophesy.

We used to run this place; all of history embered in our cores. Titans on Earth, our slow weight...

We used to run this place; all of history embered in our cores.  Titans on Earth, our slow weight carving out mountains, hillsides, valleys.  You could not look upon this world and not see our hands in its shaping.  Now look at us– diminished, dying, and leaving behind an Earth without record, without memory.    

The thing with Harris was that he couldn’t get it clear in his head: there were no countries...

The thing with Harris was that he couldn’t get it clear in his head: there were no countries anymore.  Nobody wanted them.  Everyone was just trying to stay warm, stay fed.  He kept saying he was going to be the one to do it, he’d find a piece of land somewhere and start one, and Wizard would shake his head, tell him why it wouldn’t work.  Anything worth having, they’d kill you for, he said. And what good were they anyway, if you think back?  Wizard gestured with his arm and spit.  I mean, just look where it got us.  Harris got moody and quiet, he started snapping twigs in his hands, maybe just to do something, to work the heat out of him.  Wizard was right, of course.  He was always right.  There was nothing here worth having.  No place safe, nothing constant.  When the world ended, something inside of us went with it– good or bad, I don’t know.  Harris couldn’t get his mind around it.  We couldn’t go back.  We were on our way to something different.

we knew him by what he was called: Mr. Quantum Fantastic. Greasy hair, bad teeth. He used to let...

we knew him by what he was called: Mr. Quantum Fantastic.  Greasy hair, bad teeth.  He used to let the high school kids use his house to drink beer and smoke weed.  You could go in and there’d be about half a dozen kids from the school, some on the couch or necking at the foot of the stairs.  No one knew much about him, just a few things you pick up here and there:  he was a retired professor at the university; he liked kung fu movies and on Sundays he’d go out in the morning and come back at night with a cooler full of trout.  Fry them up for whoever was there.  Rumor was he had a kid somewhere that didn’t live with him, and this kid was always hitting him up for money.  He wasn’t a pervert or anything, at least not with me.  He said he just liked having people around.  It was comforting, he said.  Like television.  And yes, sometimes people would steal or there’d be a fight or some problem he’d have to call the sheriff to sort out, but by and large, everyone seemed to like the arrangement fine.  This was ages ago, of course and I’m not sure where Mr. Quantum Fantastic is anymore— if he’s even still alive.  Sometimes I catch myself driving out past his house off the old fireroad.  I’ll look out across that vast field, hoping to see his light on but it never is.  It’s a strange feeling.  Like something old in me is trying to get on its feet.  I keep telling myself that one day I’ll stop in and try the door, and see if anyone answers but so far I haven’t done it.  I don’t know.  We did a lot of things in that house and maybe some of it just isn’t worth remembering.  One day, I know, I’m going to drive past and look across the road, and there’s not going to be anything there.  Just an empty field and the sky and air.  And I just know it’s going to break my heart.

We did our video and I didn’t feel bad or anything; we showered and got paid, and some of us...

We did our video and I didn’t feel bad or anything; we showered and got paid, and some of us went out for a late dinner.  It felt good being out.  It’d rained during the shoot and now the streets were slicked down; you could smell the whole place– the grass, the leaves, smell skin and soap and perfume.  Down the block from the apartment is a Greek diner.  They sat us by a window and took our orders.  It was me, Alan and the girl Alan had dug up for the shoot.  She was four foot six and told everyone her name was Ellie.  The story was she was a friend of a friend who owed Alan a favor or something.  She wasn’t like us, she wasn’t trying to get into the business.  She wasn’t trying to get into the business.  We looked at her and she started apologizing.  No, sorry, I didn’t mean, etc.– but I didn’t say anything.  Our food came- we’d ordered wings and chicken fingers for the table and Ellie sat there, her hands in her lap. It’s fine, I said.  Let’s just enjoy ourselves.  We had some drinks and after dinner, Alan dropped her off at her boyfriend’s place and me back at my mom’s.  He drove off and I sat on the porch.  Then I took a walk through the neighborhood, rubbing my hands together, trying to keep warm.  I was fine.  Nothing had changed.  I was fine.

We did our video and I didn’t feel bad or anything; we showered and got paid, and some of us...

We did our video and I didn’t feel bad or anything; we showered and got paid, and some of us went out for a late dinner.  It felt good being out.  It’d rained during the shoot and now the streets were slicked down; you could smell the whole place— the grass, the leaves, smell skin and soap and perfume.  Down the block from the apartment is a Greek diner.  They sat us by a window and took our orders.  It was me, Alan and the girl Alan had dug up for the shoot.  She was four foot six and told everyone her name was Ellie.  The story was she was a friend of a friend who owed Alan a favor or something.  She wasn’t like us, she wasn’t trying to get into the business.  She wasn’t trying to get into the business.  We looked at her and she started apologizing.  No, sorry, I didn’t mean, etc.— but I didn’t say anything.  Our food came- we’d ordered wings and chicken fingers for the table and Ellie sat there, her hands in her lap. It’s fine, I said.  Let’s just enjoy ourselves.  We had some drinks and after dinner, Alan dropped her off at her boyfriend’s place and me back at my mom’s.  He drove off and I sat on the porch.  Then I took a walk through the neighborhood, rubbing my hands together, trying to keep warm.  I was fine.  Nothing had changed.  I was fine.

markerslinger:So I was looking though my Stuff today when I found a little black journal I must...

markerslinger:

So I was looking though my Stuff today when I found a little black journal I must have kept some time ago. Inside I found notes to projects I don’t remember and some cryptic blueprints. I decided I wanted to show you some skulls Past Markerslinger drew that Present Markerslinger does not remember.

Past me had even convenienced Present me with measurements and the way we label scientific sketches.

I think I must have been planning to make monsters.

I do however, remember this dapper gentleman from my head stomach. I plan on using him later. I’m glad I found this idea again.And now, back to me diving through my notes and journals. 

-M

We had visions of the Rainbow Bridge; there were gulls and sandpipers and in the tall grass were...

We had visions of the Rainbow Bridge; there were gulls and sandpipers and in the tall grass were beetles grinding their wings.  From the beach head the ocean was a vast gray, and we stood, looking out out through the wreck of our bodies— the shore, upwards.  It seemed to go on forever, over the water, piercing into the mist.  We were tired and battle-worn, and we took each others’ hands and whispered a prayer.  And we unloosed our armor and lay down our swords, and together we climbed— step by step— through that In-Between place, toward Asgard. 

we were always like this: since the dawn of Man, or before even then– when we were apes...

we were always like this: since the dawn of Man, or before even then– when we were apes killing each other; or when the first amino acids chained together on the early Earth; or before the sun, before the universe, when there only heat and energy coiled into negative space– all of it squeezed so tight till finally something cracked, and out came everything; space, time, great squalls of light and matter unfurling into existence. And at some point you came to the world, you put on clothes, lived soft and you forgot.  We were born Fire.