R³, page 11
I remember seeing the contents…
The jars…
The liquid…
Nina.
With a sense of recognition beyond any reasonable explanation, Dr. Hammond suddenly understands. He understands what’s inside the sphere. He understands what’s inside the jars. Perhaps, understands is not the correct word, but it’s the simplest way to describe how my mentally stored visual perception—John’s perception—had found its way, as if downloaded, into the dark corners of Dr. Hammond’s own mind. We are in sync. Somehow.
I see this happening.
I feel this happening.
And I’m not even there.
“Reuse. Redream. Recycle. Making all of your dreams come true,” they sing.
Reuse. Redream. Recycle. Making all of your dreams come true, they promise.
After the ceremony, the woman who calls herself my mother kisses Bill’s semi-decomposing hand with deep appreciation.
Like an ancient underwater creature who’s been sleeping for millennia, Bill opens his cavernous mouth lethargically, suddenly enlightened by some spark of wisdom. “The all-seeing One Eye will be here before we know it. It will be born and it will light our path. Its powers—limitless.”
Corroded by his own gluttonous holiness, Bill’s distracted murky eyes leave the metallic sphere. It sits, unsupervised, at the back of the RV, reeling Dr. Hammond in with extraordinary force.
Chapter 18.5: The well ran dry.
THE WELL RAN DRY
“They’re not stocking our supplies anymore. The well ran dry,” says the counter clerk in a voice burdened with annoyance.
Young Bill’s hair falls onto his face, uncombed, frazzled, uncontrolled—like him.
“Are you sure? You sure you’re not hoarding a box in the back? Your personal little stash??” he accuses, scrambling for the right words when none come out.
“For the last time, sir,” the clerk says firmly, “we are out. There are no R³s available anymore. We haven’t received a shipment in weeks.”
Blood drains out of Bill’s young face as his current reality slowly shatters.
The small TV stacked in a corner of his cramped, dirty motel room blares loudly, illuminating the otherwise somber area with its fluorescence. Styrofoam containers and take-out paper bags crowd every surface of the room—some with days old food still sitting in them and the swarm of flies that chaperon them.
A tower made out of empty R³ bottles sits on top of the only small table by the TV. A rat scampers by.
“...bringing us back to living in a dream-less world,” the TV reporter says, hugging her microphone. “On related news, a sudden upsurge on the snowflakes’ stock market clearly shows it’s been driving more consumers to the store as a direct result of...”
Young Bill digs through every cabinet under the dwarf bathroom sink. Cleaning supplies, plunger, brush; all land on the bathroom floor, rattling, screaming at his recklessness. Finally, he stops, retrieving a small box. An old shoebox. He blows the dust off the lid and removes a small, silvery piece from inside. A gun. He looks at it intently. The features on his face fragment, splitting into tiny puzzle pieces, shifting and pixelating in no particular order, constantly changing and repositioning like a Rubik’s cube until the pieces progressively reassemble, displaying John’s face—my face.
What are you doing, Bill?
THE YEAR OF THE NOW
Bill enters his private corner in the RV lead by his milky eyes. The metallic sphere sits on its usual spot. He closes the curtain behind him, disconnecting from the blind followers and the outside world.
He closes his eyes, pressing his hands on the container. However, something is wrong. He frowns, presses harder, expecting something to happen, but it doesn’t. He unlocks the latch and opens the lid with a “hiss”. His face distorts with a mixture of terror and disbelief.
Bill takes a few steps back and collapses on the floor, his worn-out heart suffocated with anguish. A pitiful whimper slips out between his dry lips.
The metallic sphere is empty.
Chapter 19: His brain has turned to mush.
His brain has turned to mush.
Dr. Hammond starts up the machine.
From inside a bag, he retrieves the three jars containing the yellow serum. A glowing, geometric outline suddenly bleeds through his face, allowing it to shift and rearrange itself, until it gradually pixelates into me, dressed exactly like Dr. Hammond.
With meticulous care, I pour the contents of the jars into a large glass container with a narrow mouth, connected to the iron-lung incubator. The unused hammer sits on the table.
Once the machine is fully running, I take my spot on the chaise lounge and inject the IV into my arm and cortex. I monitor the stats with a small remote control as a set of numbers blink repeatedly, going up. As soon as they stop, a green light goes on.
I hit the red button on the switch.
Nina’s serum begins to pump out of the glass container. A few seconds later, a more radiant version of the serum flows out of the incubator into a tube connected to my IV.
Finally the serum reaches both my arm and cortex, causing my body to jolt violently. I clench my fists, trying as hard as I can to endure the agonizing pain that is paralyzing my entire body. My eyes flip open as a loud gasp rushes out of my mouth. My eyeballs are clouded with frosted white.
Lights flutter across my eyelids. A liquid suddenly perforates my iris, mimicking the membrane of a cell-like bubble. Images flip like a slide show through the visual innards of my brain.
An indescribable level of joy overpowers my pleasure core as Nina, on a swing, laughs hysterically, full of life. She drops onto her back, in a fit of melodic giggles, orgasmic music to my ears.
But memory lane takes a sharp turn as a doctor examines Nina’s vitals. There’s something wrong. Her skin is pallid, her face is gaunt. Her kaleidoscopic eyes tear up in fear as the color slowly fades out of them. A large, womb-like capsule envelops her. Droning hums reverberate inside her ears, forcing electrical stimuli into her delicate brain. Bright lights flash, rupturing her dilated pupils. She can’t breathe.
My body is taken over by tremors, wanting it to stop, but the slide show continues, far from being done; it’s an unstoppable force, which has something to teach. It takes us back in time…
Nina meets me in the club for the first time. I follow her.
I let the wall guide me back into my tiny living room, but the wall warns me—something is wrong. And the wall is right.
Isaac is frozen, his back turned and his eyes glued to the coffee table in the middle of the room. The R³ bottle, the pharmaceutical bottles, an old syringe—the buffet of drugs all spread over. On perfect display. On a silver platter.
It’s over. From behind, Isaac slowly reaches towards his waistcoat—a gun? Cold sweat trickles down my neck and down my spine. It has to be a gun.
Isaac turns briskly, his hand wrapped around a black object, but the hammer finds its way into my shaky hand before he fully faces me. Lovingly hugged between my fingers, the hammer swings hastily, cutting through the air, finally landing on Isaac’s fragile skull.
Blink. I’m gone.
Blink. Dr. Hammond’s hand is now hugging the hammer impacted into Isaac’s skull.
Crack.
Isaac collapses.
Blink. A confused Dr. Hammond now stands outside of my apartment, still holding the bloody hammer. Somehow I’m seeing all of this—from above, from below.
He was there…
Blood speckles his face and shirt.
He killed Isaac. I wasn’t there. Yet I was there… as him. He was me. But who am I, if not me?
“John, do not open the door. You hear me? Do not open the door.” Nina warns me, before hanging up.
She knew… She was protecting me, stopping me from facing myself, stopping my worlds from coming undone.
Disoriented, Dr. Hammond turns and knocks twice on my door, gently. Then, his cell phone goes off. The jingle.
I’m inside my apartment; I can hear the jingle, just like before. I know Dr. Hammond is outside looking down the hallway, hoping to remain unseen; I know he’s there. I can feel him… an extension of myself.
In the midst of a panic attack, Dr. Hammond flees, exiting the apartment building, allowing his phone to ring until it fades completely, leaving behind only the sound of my echoing heartbeat. I close my eyes. The serum takes me somewhere else...
Where am I?
Nina lays on a gurney, wearing a white gown. Her body blends in with the blasting white lights. She is very much pregnant. Her face appears emotionless, dead, coated with sweat, the surrounding hair dampened with excessive moisture.
“Our son will be born to—” Her voice is cracks.
She screams in pain. She’s giving birth.
“The cord is wrapped around his neck!” one doctor yells, “You must stop fighting! You’re killing him!”
My sweet... sweet... Johnny. Our Johnny.
I descend past sewage pipes and electrical wiring, through concrete and wood, flowing like a ghost, until I arrive at a dark and gritty hospital room; a German expressionistic sanitary nightmare, with sharp corners and devouring shadows. I hover, suspended midair over two doctors wearing scrubs and breathing masks. They look over a brain scan.
“His brain has turned to mush,” the first one sings. “Don't you agree, doctor?”
“Yes, doctor. Indeed,” the second one adds.
“He needs a new one,” the first one sings. “Don’t you agree, doctor?”
“Yes, doctor. Indeed,” the second one adds.
I float through the wall, into the adjacent room with mold pushing through the tiles. Strapped on an operation chair, under a hot fluorescent spotlight, Dr. Hammond’s limp body sinks, respectfully abiding to the laws of gravity.
Disheveled, he half-opens his eyes, studying his environment. He tries to move, but his hands are restrained against the chair. Wires and hooks are attached to his eyes, head and mouth, immobilizing his jaw. Viscous drool drips onto his lap. He notices the dotted pattern on the hospital gown. His legs are bare, hardly covered by the medical fabric.
Fear crawls like fire ants all over his body. He squirms violently trying to release himself, but the straps won’t budge. Hands, arms, chest, feet—all firmly secured against the metallic chair, which in turn is bolted into the moldy floor. His eyes follow a thick, black chord growing from behind the chair, trailing into a large machine that looks like a generator. A small screen frames a dial needle, which increases with every passing second. 10. 50. 80. 100. 150. 200. Volts. Then it stops.
A stream of white fluid cuts through Dr. Hammond’s body, jolting him in his seat and numbing his senses. The dial needle goes back to zero. As his head hangs, more drool drips onto his lap. His eyes float inside their sockets, trying to further examine the room hidden in the shadows. A cabinet holds medical supplies such as needles and a collection of jars securing fluids and organs—HAZARDOUS and TOXIC symbols on every single one of them. A small sink drips loudly, not fully tightened.
Stiletto heels staccato snappily down then hall. He sees a silhouette approaching through the rectangular windows on the double doors. Someone is coming. Someone to help? Someone to set him free?
The doors swing open, making way for a petite woman in a fitted, red tailored dress and wide-brimmed hat. Dr. Hammond squints hard, hoping to identify friend or foe. She stops abruptly at the sight of him, letting out a faint gasp. Shadows mask her face, but her voice is unmistakable. This can’t be real, he thinks…
“Sweet bug… what have they done to you?” Rose whines, finally looking up, revealing her face—fully covered with bandages, except for a small sliver exposing her overly done lips. Dr. Hammond instantly recoils, the wiring on his jaw allowing only faint whimpers to slip through.
“My poor, poor baby... Thank you so much for doing this, you have no idea what this means to me,” she baby talks as she removes the bandages on her face, each one peeling off slowly, stretching icky residuals oozing from her rotting, disfigured face. “Mommy loves you, mommy loves you dearly. Thank you for giving me your skin. I need it. I need it badly. Mommy needs to be young again.”
Mommy?
A chunk of meat falls off. Her skin is practically melting off her bones, dripping like thick pudding.
Dr. Hammond panics, wailing and shaking his arms violently, trying to free himself. The needle dial goes up again and an electric shock blasts through his fragile body. His eyes force themselves open; his eyelids seem to weight a ton.
Suddenly, the dark hallway from which Rose entered extends to surreal depths like an accordion; its walls fly off swiftly, revealing the geometric ‘space’ adorned by pixel-fireflies and crawling light beams.
The room boxing them shakes. Its foundation no longer rooted on a secure surface, they fall victim to evaporating gravity. Dr. Hammond’s eyes are about to dart out of their sockets as his movements become explosively violent.
A crackling sound shatters all noise, leaving everything to his ears forever muted.
“Here you go, sweet-bug. It’s time to dream,” says Rose, as she feeds the memory of my young self some R³ out of a magical blue bottle…
Dr. Hammond throws up violently into the toilet. He is at home, his tie loosened, the top buttons of his shirt undone. Did he dream that? Or did I dream that? Black gunk forcibly pours out of his mouth, making his eyes bloodshot, and his face flushed, from the never-ending expulsion of the strange substance taking over his body. His eyes are hypersensitive to light and his ears to sound.
Nina runs into the bathroom and abruptly stops at the sight of him. Dr. Hammond squints, is this real?
Nina panics. “Johnny? What’s wrong??”
Johnny?
Flustered, she places her hand on his back but immediately recoils, as Dr. Hammond bends over vomiting more violently. Nina presses her back against the cold wall, trapped, tears streaming down her flawless complexion.
The room around Dr. Hammond spins.
He collapses, the last bit of oxygen wheezing out of his now empty lungs.
Chapter 20: The Crystal Field.
The Crystal Field.
Darkness consumes my tiny apartment, save for an invasive flashlight and a candle here and there. My furniture is piled on one side of the room, blocking the door, leaving the entire floor exposed.
I sit in the middle of the room, scratching my forever-itching head. I can sense darkness wrapping over my bleak eyes.
I dreamt last night. A dream with my eyes open, a dream with my eyes closed—what difference does it make?
And so my dream begins…
Two men journeyed through a thick forest with trees as tall as the eye could register. Branches acted as restricting gates allowing but faint beams of light to pass through. The men rode on horses, but their pace was steady, as foliage grew thicker and thicker, making it almost impossible for them to continue. The older, seemingly more experienced man took the lead. A younger man followed, silent; his apprehensive eyes glued to the ground, every speck of color hidden within them, like Nina’s. Their faces were thin, and their clothes, dirty. The young man was weak and never got off his horse. The leader had made a promise, a promise to someone important, to protect this young man, as he was of value. He was not to let anything bad happen to him, but he hadn’t expected disease.
Their journey took them into rocky mountains, across a desert. The horses were weak and thirsty. The leader fed the young man berries from inside a leather pouch. Their water supply was running low.
Halfway through the mountain range, one of the horses collapsed, dying from exhaustion or sunstroke.
Unwilling to share the fate of the horse, they set camp for the night and cooked part of its meat, hoping to fuel themselves, at least until their next encounter with supplies, which could be soon, late, or never.
This man was looking for something. He was looking for a lake, a pool of water, which they should’ve come across by now. Yet he was told it had moved, and indeed it had. However, his perseverance remained unchanged—he couldn’t go back now, even though back was where he wanted to be.
By the time they arrived to a vast, snowy plain, the second horse was gone. Beards covered their faces—frozen icicles hung from them, frosty jewelry. They found themselves surrounded by emptiness. White and more white. The older man’s eyes showed panic and confusion. The young man was getting weaker, barely holding his weight with the aid of a makeshift walking stick.
A few miles in, the plain had suddenly changed and was no longer flat; crystal spikes protruded from the icy ground. The man recognized this place. He saw it in a dream. It’s a sign, he thought, we are here. With renewed energy and hope, he cut through the crystal field, finally coming to a stop.
Before him, a wide opening, at least thirty feet in diameter, sat free of crystal spikes. In its place, hundreds of frozen animals—horses, tigers, lions, elephants, deer—protruded from the ground. Thin coats of shimmering ice blanketed their lifeless bodies, capturing forever in time their attempt to break free, to escape, to swim out… it was a graveyard of ice. And that’s when he knew his search was over. He had finally arrived to the lake.
He wanted to explain to the young man that they had to get to the other side, that they had to go inside the lake, but his excitement got the best of him. Expecting to find trapped water below the icy crust, he retrieved a rifle from inside his bag, and began smashing the butt end against the permafrost. After a few hard hits, he looked down—not even a scratch. Desperation took over as his tired eyes scanned the area for something—anything—he could use to break through. White clouds puffed out the young man’s mouth as he rested against a large ice crystal, too tired to take another step.
