[8Fold] Template #4

Jamie Rosen jamie.rosen at sunlife.com
Mon Aug 13 20:02:41 PDT 2007


I can tell that I'm dreaming because the whole family is at the dinner
table. My mother is as young as my first memory of her, my father as
strong and composed and impressive a figure as I remember. My brother
is there, too, but unlike my parents he looks just like he did the
last time I saw him, but clean-shaven and without the wild look in his
eyes.  He's always clean-shaven in my dreams; maybe it's the
equivalent of the de-ageing my mom and dad have undergone.

The table isn't in the dining room as it ouhgt to be -- or rather, the
dining room isn't the dining room as it is, or even as it was. Three
of the walls look the same as always, with the same paint, the same
wall hangings, the same furniture, but the fourth is non-existent,
opening up onto what looks like the interior of a department store
with onlookers that gawk at us  as they walk past, or stop and stare.
Which wall is missing varies depending on where I look -- it is always
the one before my eyes, with the two in my peripheral vision as opaque
as they should be and my mind certain (in the way that only
dreamselves are) that the one behind me is as well.

In spite of all of this we go about our dinner as though nothing is
wrong. At no point do we speak but at every moment we have just
spoken, and we pass the potatoes and shovel food into our mouths
without tasting or feeling anything. My brother excuses himself from
the table via the power of levitation, and I see a man in the
department store behind him holding up a wordless sign that reads

.................................................
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.../\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/.\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\..........|
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../...........................................
\.........|..............|.....
..
\..||||.||||.||..||.|||.||...||..||||.||||../.........|....Normal....|.....
../...||..|||..||\/||.|||.||..||||..||..|||...\.......[]|[]..........
[]|[]...
..\...||..||||.||..||.||..|||.|..|..||..||||../.......[]|[]..........
[]|[]...
../...........................................
\.........|......#4......|.....
..
\.........................................../.........|..............|.....
...\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\./\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/..........|
==============|.....
.................................................
.................................................

and I don't know what it means. That's usually the time I wake up.

I can't say I ever expected to be the one telling this part of the
story, especially to you, but here I am. It's a story with at least a
half-dozen beginnings, depending on how you want to tell it, and I've
never been good at those sorts of decisions so instead I'm going to
start it in the middle, when Billy Kidman came back to Rex Falls and
got involved in the madness that always seems to surround my brother
and the circles he moves in.

The first time I wrote that I wrote "the circles of madness" by
mistake. I guess that's what they call a Freudian slp, although it
doesn't really give away anything I wasn't already saying.

Now, Grant met Billy before I did, but I can't say for certain he
really knew who he was talking to, or even that he was talking. He was
having one of his episodes, a really bad one, and sometimes during one
of those he doesn't even seem to exist. It's like he's been replaced
by someone else entirely.

Anyway, Grant met Billy in what used to be my bookshop until Billy
bought it from me. It never made much money -- I was always eating
tuna out of a can five meals out of six -- but it was home, and it
gave Grant a place to find me if he needed to. So I felt pretty bad
when I heard he turned up there that day, like I'd abandoned him or
let him down, even though there was no way of knowing if I'd ever see
him again from one day to the next.

I'm sorry, do you mind if I smoke? It helps my nerves. Thanks.

So when I heard about what had happened I felt like I had to come meet
Billy in person -- the whole sale had been done through brokers -- and
of course visit my brother in the hospital where they were keeping him
and make sure he was okay. Billy was a really nice guy, really
understanding and not too bad to look at at either. But I could tell
there was something bothering him, you know? Something he was keeping
to himself. Of course, I didn't know that his dad had just passed
away, but even if I did I don't think that would have explained it to
me. Of course, that's easy to say now, eh? They always say hindsight's
20/20.

A couple of days after that first meeting we went out on a date and
things started to get really weird. Well, it was coffee, which is
close to a date -- as close as I get these days, at least.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean that he started to get weird on me.
He was always a perfect gentlemen, or at least the closest you can get
to one these days. No, I mean everything *else* started to get weird.
I gave some change to this homeless guy wearing red and blue tights on
the corner, and another one with a big yellow and black bat on his
chest was going to mug me until this guy showed up.

I'm not sure who he was because he was wearing a mask that really
covered most of his face, and his build was more or less obscured by
the red bomber jacket he had on. I figured right away he was a four-
colour of some sort -- at least I hoped he was, otherwise he was just
as crazy as my brother and a lot more dangerous -- and the way he took
the other guy down without throwing a punch sealed it for me. So quick
and graceful, what else could he be? Then he put a single foot on the
guy to make sure he couldn't get away, -- almost like he was posing,
full of confidence, and it showed -- and he extended his hand to me
and said,

"Continued on next page."

He took me by the hand, and the next thing I knew I was the one
standing there in the mask and the red jacket, looking down at myself
looking up at myself. It only lasted for a second before I was back in
my own body, but let me tell you that second was long enough.
Especially since when I came back to myself both my attacker and my
rescuer had vanished into thin air. Not even a drop of blood on the
ground in the alleyway, just the usual slush that builds up this time
of year.

Actually, that's not entirely true. It was more than a second before I
was back in my body. And I saw more than myself with those eyes. I saw
the world, the whole world laid before me, and it was nothing but
words, words as far as the eye could see, words upon words upon words
neverending. That's why I wrote this all out before I came to see you.
Why I'm pretty much just reading it to you now. Because it's all words
anyway. Everything. Everyone. You. Me.

No, no. I'm fine. Yes, I realize I have had a stressful time of things
lately. Maybe it was all a dream, or a hallucination, or some sort of
illusion or four-colour mind control. I have thought of all of that,
and no I don't have any proof that what I saw was real -- or any proof
that it wasn't. But I haven't told you the part -- the part that
really bothered me. You see, when I caught a glimpse of the script --
when I saw the way the words were formed -- I recognized it.

It was my brother's handwriting.

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