Intentional Dissonance (13 page)

Please let this be the first time I say these things, please let this not be a loop, he begs himself.

“Hello, Emily,” says Jon.

“Jon. It’s Jon, right?” asks Emily.

Everything seems so normal here. She doesn’t remember him yet once, she trusted him enough to show him a mole on her thigh that she thought was ugly. It was just a few centimetres above her garter belt right now.

He thinks of what it would be like to kiss her and the image warms his blood and makes his chest rise. He figures that surely everyone must do that: imagine what it must be like to kiss her. He wonders if they have fantasies of rescuing her if something happens, a mugging, terrorism, something. And then they would kiss, naturally.

Maybe when you stop doing drugs, you forget everything that happened while you were on them. Maybe you made yourself forget, you blocked it out. He thought she was beautiful then, in her disheveled way in the city of NewLand, in the dark present that felt so distant and she was beautiful now, here at this wedding but in a much more elegant, acceptable way. Her uncombed hair, combed. More people than just him would’ve thought she was beautiful now.

“You really don’t remember me?” asks Jon.

“No. Vaguely, maybe…I know your name and I know why we know each other but I don’t remember the specifics of it all. That was then. You know that. It’s all…kind of…” says Emily, gesturing halfheartedly.

“I know that,” says Jon.

She’d stopped. He’d stopped. Were they normal here? Is this what could have been? Drugs, like misery, require company. Even if your only company is the drug itself. It is always something. You can’t talk about the mysteries of the universe and the secret joy to be found within each object in it to yourself all night. Or maybe you can.

Jon knows that something is wrong with Michelle. Her name is like an itch inside his head he can’t scratch. But here, in this dream, he cannot make sense of any of it. He remembers a man who was half-tree and half-man and a man dressed in black with one eye and a man who said he knew his father. An evil man. But now he’s here. With Emily. She’d always been his sounding board and he had been hers. When he saw rain falling up from the ground, she saw it too. When she saw spiders, he saw them too and he batted them away from her and made her feel safe. Although, admittedly some of those visions were his fault. She thought it was just the drugs at first but she’d worked out that some of it, some of it was him. Here, she’s an accountant. She probably isn’t but she says something corporate when he asks her what she does for a living now. Everything’s so beautifully boring.

“I wanted to want you like you wanted me to. But I couldn’t,” says Jon.

“What?” Ask Emily.

“Nothing.”

“You were friends with some of my friends, I know that.” It was a question disguised as a statement. She really doesn’t remember much. She’s been treated to forget, that’s what he couldn’t put his finger on. That’s why things were so strange. Things moved so slowly here. Her parents had taken her for a memory wipe, that was it. Or maybe they were just stuck somewhere else and couldn’t go back to who they once were. Everything moved like it was covered in syrup.

“We grew up in the same neighbourhood,” says Jon.

“I know that, you don’t have to explain,” says Emily.

“Do you remember the night on the swings when I first met Michelle?”

She answers his question with a blank stare and half a sound that says she doesn’t.

Her red hair continues to fall.

“You’re the one who said you didn’t remember me.”

“It’s not like I’m ashamed of those days but, they were something maybe everyone goes through, you know? You mess around, have fun but one day, we all have to grow up. When did you stop using?”

“Oh, shortly after I moved away,” says Jon. And he’s telling the truth. Everything is normal. Life is normal here. Everything else was a dream.

The conversation’s going to become awkward and stilted soon, he remembers that. He’s been here before. This is a loop. He’s sure of it now. He starts to sweat a little. That makes no sense. There’s no reason for him to think he’s in a loop but the fear is there. How many times have I driven up to this hotel? How many times?

“Do you remember Michelle at least?” asks Jon.

“Michelle? I had a friend in high school called Michelle but I can’t remember ever introducing the two of you,” says Emily.

He sighs.

All the people he knew, all the people he’d ever met were trapped in the past. Now, on this day, in this place, only these new people existed. With jobs and houses and kids either already here or on the way. And Emily, who used to be his best friend, is further away than anyone.

Emily sees someone else she hasn’t seen for a long time and waves at them, then mumbles something that people mumble when they’re going to leave for a while, something about seeing you later, lovely chatting to you, that sort of thing. Sometimes he doesn’t remember what people say, just what people mean. I need this. I don’t want that. Do this for me. I appreciate you. I hate you. I love you. Just the meaning, not the specifics. God had never once lived or loved in these details.

She turns and leaves and as she does, the light from the sea catches her red hair and turns it into a veil of light, some kind of burning halo, just for a second and then it’s gone again. He turns and looks out at the sea as the sun sluggishly works its way across the water. Everything shimmers in the orange haze of late afternoon. The light hurts his eyes and he’s forgotten his sunglasses in the car; quickly, he’s blinking away tears. He’s got a car here. There are no trains. No Peace Carriages. No doctors.

“I’ve never known you to be so emotional at a wedding, Jon,” says James, Gentle James, another person he once knew but now didn’t. They’d been friends at school hadn’t they? James swishes a bottle of scotch and hangs onto him. He used to knock on Jon’s window at night and they’d go out and smash letterboxes and run riot through the streets. No. No, they’d flown planes together and they’d bombed people, people he’d been told were the enemy. But that doesn’t make sense. Jon’s never flown a plane in his life. He went to design school.

“You know me, James, always the crybaby.” He jokes in the way people from years ago did, like they once were. It’s the harshness of friends you haven’t seen for a while and who knew you once used to mean, “I love you” when you said, “hello.”

He hates weddings. On behalf of the bride and groom and on his own accord as well. Weddings are about everyone else except the bride and groom. They are an excuse for families to get together and see each other and compare notes about what life is and where it’s supposed to be taking them.

“What are you doing these days?” asks James. They both slipped into the same trance.

“I’m a graphic designer,” says Jon.

“Really? How long have you been doing that for?” says James, Gentle James and Jon wants to say I threw your dead body out of a plane and it burst into flames and I cried so hard for so long and they took all my memories and I miss you, I miss you so much. But instead, he says, “Too long.”

“Where do you work?” asks James.

“Carnal, The Neon Jump-Rope, Bigsy’s,” says Jon, listing them off like great battles. I miss you my friend, I miss you.

“Never heard of any of those,” says James.

“Obviously,” says Jon. “And yourself? Still trying to crack a career as a professional clown?”

“That’s just a side gig now, now I’m an accountant,” says James.

“Awesome, that sounds like fun. What exactly does that entail?” asks Jon with just a hint of sarcasm.

His mind immediately starts kicking around its bedroom, going through boxes and shelves and old books because it knows it won’t be needed for at least the next 45 to 60 seconds while someone tells him something he really doesn’t care about. James never died. He’s still here. They never bombed anyone. Jon never had his tattoos cut off in a camp. In the boxes Jon’s kicking around in his head, there’s an eye-patch and a branch and a stethoscope. Jon doesn’t know why. Things move slowly.

Mumble, sharp word, soft word, swearing, next sentence, sharp word, sharp word, soft word, gesturing, the tone of someone who really believes what they’re telling you is a paradigm shift in their respective industry. Question. Pause.

Shit.

“I’m sorry, what was that last bit?” asks Jon.

“I asked you if you were really listening to me and you just nodded your head,” says James.

He isn’t actually kidding or being mean to be funny, he’s genuinely offended. Sweet, Gentle James staggers, just a little, his body fighting gravity and the booze.

“I’m sorry James, I really didn’t mean to but I just remembered I’ve got work to finish for tomorrow and I got distracted,” says Jon.

“Whatever, haha,” he snakes drunkenly back into the core of the wedding, looking for one more familiar face.

You do get to make a second impression, as long as it’s nearly ten years later, in a place like this, and this was a terrible one. It really does upset him but more in the way that he knows he should be upset about it and should use that bad feeling as a way to motivate himself to be a better person, but it doesn’t. He’s upset because he just can’t get upset about things that should matter anymore.

He has just one more drink, says goodbye to the married couple and then leaves. Early day tomorrow, big presentations in the afternoon. He walks across the parking lot, opens the door to his car, the convertible he’s always wanted, and gets in. He takes the top down before he gets out of the parking lot as he figures the wind will keep him awake. He feels like he’s just watched the people he once knew drown and die in the people they thought they’d wanted to be.

Something bad has happened or was going to happen today, somewhere but not here. Phantom memories tease his brain. There was a wooden monster, a man with a white beard, Michelle, Michelle, Michelle. Where’s Michelle? And Emily? Why did things feel so wrong? Everything came into view sharply and then disappeared just as quickly.

The sun explodes overhead in a thin white line, hot on his face as it turns the coastline into cascading lava pits. The creatures of the sea kill themselves on the white sand while tanned bodies move like out of focus ghosts, on their way to the other side of the sun. It’s happening again, Jon tells himself as the blast wave devastates the surrounding countryside and a wave of shadows howling and calling for blood crash over the remains. I did this. I do this. I will do this.

Suddenly he’s not there; he finds himself next to Michelle on a couch and there’s another power failure. He’s telling her how much he loves her and she’s smiling and nodding. He kisses the back of her neck and she smiles some more and they make love and he thinks he knows what happiness feels like and some part of him just wants someone else to touch him and tell him he’s real. She does that and she asks for so, so little in return.

And now they’re walking through a park holding hands and she lets go because she sees a child lying on the ground and he’s hungry. She forces Jon to go home and get some food from the MicroPVR and bring it back. He grumbles about it but he loves her for it and he’ll never admit it. He hates the world but he loves her because she doesn’t.

And now he’s drunk and verbose; they’re at the Cabaret and they’re arguing, fighting.

“You know what the problem is? You buy things and then you keep them clean. You take care of them. Keep them in a special pocket. Away from keys and coins. Away from other things that should be kept clean and taken care of as well. Then they get scratched by accident. And scratched again. And again. And again. And again. Soon, you don’t care about them anymore. You don’t keep them in a special pocket. You throw them in the bag with everything else. They’ve surpassed their form and become nothing but function. People are like that. You meet them and keep them clean. In a special pocket. And then you start to scratch them. Not on purpose. Sometimes you just drop them by accident or forget which pocket they’re in. But after the first scratch, it’s all downhill from there. You see past their form. They become function. They are a use, nothing more,” says Jon and even he does not know what he means anymore.

“Are you talking about me?” asks Michelle.

“No. I’m just tired,” says Jon.

“I love you.”

“Ok.”

“…ok,” says Michelle.

Now they’re somewhere else and Jon finds himself talking at her, not to her, lecturing her because he’s so fucking smart.

“You watch the news and think you’re informed. You listen to the radio and think you enjoy music. You speak to the same friends you’ve had since high school and think you’re socialites. I know better. I’m better. But thinking that just makes me feel worse,” says Jon.

“…You don’t have to like me or who I am but I do love you.”

“I said ok.”

“Bu—” begins Michelle.

“OK.”

He gets up and looks for something to slam, something to make his point. She buries her head in her hands and cries. Ok. I’m fine. I’m just tired. The things people say when they don’t know why they’re fighting anymore and just want to go to bed.

Now he’s just talking at the air and she’s sleeping. “I wish I knew what a traffic jam felt like. I wish I knew what being afraid of doing your taxes was like. What it felt like to be bored of a job or to really, really hate one, to feel like you were doing what you had to do to survive and not what you wanted to do. I wish I knew what it was like to have kids. I wish I knew what a hot dog that didn’t come out of the PVR tasted like. I wish I knew what going on holiday was like. All of that seems so much easier to deal with than this,” and he rambles on, until the sun comes up.