An Hallucinatory Century

An Hallucinatory Century

My muse blows in. Always at midnight and never a knock, just the whoosh of the sliding glass door.

I'm on the couch typing on the laptop when I hear the sound. I wave hello to her from the parlor, ignore her chatter, and watch as she stops in the kitchen to set down a strangely-labeled bottle of liquor. The bottle is a blossom of color, must be easy to find in the store.

Cleo is chatty tonight, her gabbing to herself tells me she's had a few already. Usually, she's had a few too many. Her nightly visits involve intoxication in all ways and I think she the offspring of a goddess and an angel, a curious figure with entrancing features that draws this stodgy old university professor into her world. Dancer trim, her frame presents itself in peculiar geometries—diagonals, triangles, and parallels emerge as she sits, stands, or moves through space. Cleo’s deep-red mane is parted on the side and flows along her regal neck, the crisply cut ends kissing her shoulders. She carries herself elegantly, something which is humorous when she's drunk. Her expression always a slight smile radiating love and concern.

White tunic and matching slacks, as always, she comes in and quickly is the life of the parlor. The space is wide-open and roomy, like the rest of my riverfront home. My décor is bluish with accents of pink and mint green. This makes for a tranquil mind. The furniture is overstuffed and bland, this an addition of visual softness. Dim, indirect lighting allows for better mental travel as I write my book about how adjusting the visual field will affect the mind of humans in times to come. Cleo’s outfit stands out against the background, she’s the highlight of a room backlit by the future.

She smiles at the fireplace. It is fully stoked and pumping warmth. The fire is our relationship, comfy although flickering.

"Can I take off your slippers?" is the first thing she says to me. Always. My feet are lodged on the coffee table that sits between two couches.

"How are you?" I say.

"Orange," she says.

"Happy to see you," I say.

"I'm bright orange to see you, Marlin. Can I take off your slippers?" Color, so important in my writing, is so much within Cleo.

"If I let you take off my slippers, will you take off your tunic?"

Her nose crinkles.

“You noticed,” I say.

“The fragrance, yes. It’s very pleasing.”

“The bergamot is from Italy and the vanilla is from Tahiti.” I’ve burned this new mixture every few days for a month now. I think the fragrance balances the mind the way the colors of my home create a pacific landscape; shades, breaths, and hues allowing the mind to quietly wander.

Cleo settles in next to me and removes my slippers. She likes to take things off. She slides the tops of my socks down and slips them around my heels so there is a double layer of fabric there. "2100 Dance style," she says, referring to the name of her dance troupe, a name she applies to her curious way of wearing socks and to her curious way of doing everything. Ingenious stylizations she has, though they arrive with a grandiosity in the way she thinks about them—she believes her dance troupe will bring world peace and she wants to have her children on Mars. It’s odd, her delusions so match the work in my book about the times to come.

She takes off her tunic, her brassiere is way-modern and almost too colorful.

"I don't like that brassiere," I say.

"I know what you’re saying," she says. She takes off the brassiere. Her buds hypnotize me.

"If I put on Vivaldi, will you dance?" I say.

I power up the Vivaldi. Cleo rises. First ballet, then to jazz, and finally to moves so beyond modern they send me to my favorite place, the future. The dance is all about verve with scenes melting into scenes—blurry. Some anxious moves with calm moments in between. Then to cavorting and shimmying, crouching and rolling, skulking and quaking, angelic ascensions and death-like plunges—all with some stumbling around the couches, onto one couch twice, down into the cushions and back up.

I think about the night I met Cleo at a party at my home the night the year 2000 arrived, a whoosh of the slider and there stood a piece of art, her stance speaking the angles of cubism, a style from the 20th century, her mind speaking in observations that seemed of the 22nd century. My mind wanders back to the present.

"Go out back for a cigarette?" I say when she stops dancing.

"You've read my mind. I wish you would save those tricks for your book." She replaces her brassiere and tunic. I put my slippers and tweed jacket on. We stand in front of the fire to warm ourselves before going out back to the river.

“You can throw that tweed thing into the river, you know. Although it is fuzzy.” She looks at me cross-eyed.

I squint at her. "Clouds are fuzzy, too. I've been trying to tell if we'll make love by looking at the clouds," I say.

"Are there clouds out tonight?" She absent-mindedly toys with my mantle clock.

"Yes. If the moon is behind the clouds, will you climb into bed with me?"

“I love you,” she says.

"You love everybody," I say.

"Usually when I say I love you, you say you don’t love me." She opens the case door to the clock and moves the hour hand back an hour.

"I'm a certain way, you aren't like that. I mean, you drink like Charles Bukowski."

"Whom do I write like?" she says.

"Your poetry soars in rhythm and rhyme. I haven't yet figured out what the words mean."

"They mean I love the world." She stretches her arms wide so I can tell she means it.

"That’s what I said," I say.

"But you don't love me," she says and looks toward either the refrigerator or the sliding glass door.

"I can't love you. No one can," I say.

"Why can no one love me?" Her eyes narrow as she looks into mine. She is confused, usually it’s she confusing me.

"It's because you don't remember."

"I don't remember what?" She moves the hour hand so it’s now ahead an hour.

"It’s the drinking. The blackouts. You forget our conversations and you forget about your delusions. You forget you don't understand everything."

"I remember to come back to you."

"You even forget the sex,” I say.

Her hands go to her hips, chin out, green eyes intense like warning lights flashing. "Not always."

"Every time is like the first time."

"Isn't that a nice scenario?" She spins the hour hand forward through a complete circle.

"Tomorrow never arrives with you." I turn my back to her.

"In the 22nd Century, every person will be a masterpiece. A masterpiece of art. A masterpiece of sex. And a masterpiece of confusion."

I know her arms are crossed before I turn to check. "It's not about delusions, it's about us."

Her crossed arms tighten. "Soon the headlines will predict the news, not report it."

"Okay, I love you, Cleo, I'll admit it. I don't mind the delusions, they are you. I really do love you!"

We hug. She tells me she's always known I love her. I tell her my loving her didn’t seem right, but that it is right. She spins the clock back to the correct time.

I take two cold cans of Genesee beer out of the refrigerator and we head through the sliding glass door—this a portal from civilization into nature. It leads to a grassy expanse gently descending to the river. I struggle with the predictions for my book and this tells me I need a portal to whoosh me into the future. As we walk to the riverbank, the moon is behind the house, then behind the trees, then behind the clouds.

We smoke.

"The moon is behind the clouds," I say.

She says, "Sometimes the future is behind the clouds."

What’s in the cards for us and for the world is definitely behind the clouds. She forgets that she stops by every night at midnight—she seems only to remember to stop by. And she disappears always before dawn.

"I love you because you love the future," she says.

"Perhaps you are my future."

She takes my hands, pulls us nose to nose, both seeing each other clearly. "I most certainly am," she says.

"Always you confuse me."

"Lemon-colored lights went on the first time we made love," she says. "That's never happened before." She tells me that often. It happens every time, although she forgets.

"What is it like when you, uh, um..." I say.

"It's blue-green and like a coconut, the juice comes. I once felt a coconut in my brain and it came out of my mouth. It was comfortable."

Cleo always will be Cleo. I hold and kiss her. She steps back.

"How is your writing?" she asks.

"I'm not certain you understand my predictions, nevertheless you always seem to know where I'm going. You are my muse and responsible for my writing—that in the next century, mankind will become a masterpiece of art, a masterpiece of sex, and a masterpiece of confusion, I’m going to write that into the book tonight."

"I love your book, the world you are creating is becoming real."

I am confused by this statement, as I always am with Cleo’s words. We return to the couch and soon we're sitting with arms around each other like high-school lovers.

"Do you love me?" I say, trying to get her in the mood for love.

"It's crimson," she says.

"I think that's good," I say.

"Can I take off your slippers?"

"If I let you take off my slippers, will you take off your tunic?"

She takes off my slippers and checks that the tops of my socks are still slipped over my heels. She takes off my tweed jacket and tells me the color is all wrong, but that it does set off my soft and graying beard. She removes her tunic as though she does it every ten minutes of her life. Some nights, I think she does. The brassiere goes as easily and routinely. "Do my buds hypnotize you?" she says.

"Cleo," I say. “You send me. I don't know why."

"It's because you are from the next century and you don't know it."

"You act as though you understand everything," I say. I try to hug her tightly.

"I always guess right, no?" She pulls back.

"You get lucky, your delusions are spot on once in a while. It's chance."

"What if my delusions aren't delusions?" she says.

"You want to have your children on Mars!" I say. I’m certain about this.

"Oh dear. I should, yes, my children. There’s more to it than that and I’ll say it. The final sentence of your book will be, 'Orange when the ball dropped on 2100. Afterward the night glowed blue-green with folk dancing in every style under the moon—some with their clothes on and others skulking with bottles of liquor to mask their confusion.'"

"That's a great idea!"

"It was your idea, and I love you. This is the last time for that. There are laws."

"Talking to you is like reading your poetry," I say.

"It all starts from the socks." She tugs at my socks.

The socks. My slippers. Cleo. She's a masterpiece of art, a masterpiece of sex, and a masterpiece of confusion. So illogical, yet so adept. So apparition-like, yet undoubtedly real. Always here, yet seemingly drifting in from beyond time. I know her well, yet don't know her at all. I try again. I ask if she is a masterpiece of sex and I kiss her lips, pressing good. She kisses back with verve, this means yes, and this means we'll make love. The moon has said so.

* * *

We climb out of bed leaving our clothes on the floor where we left them. We sit cross-legged in front of the flames; the warmth of the fire is our apparel.

“I don’t believe I said, I love you,” I say.

“There is a first time for everything.”

“That’s always true with you. Tomorrow night, will you remember what I said?”

“Tomorrow night is tonight. It is yesterday. And it is tomorrow.” She stands and dials the hour hand forward and backward.

“You perplex me.”

“It’s late. Time for me to disappear.” She flicks the hour hand with a finger and leaves my timepiece in disarray.

Cleo goes into the bedroom, dresses, and returns with a quick kiss brushing my lips. Then a whoosh and she’s gone.

For the first time ever, I told her I loved her. For the first time ever, I am lost without her.

I dress and go into the kitchen and sit in the nook with her bottle of liquor to comfort me. Tonight is the night our relationship has begun. However, it’s begun with her departure. Does she really love me?

I pour a glassful and read the strange label on the bottle. ‘Urbanite Mind Cloud. Distilled in 2100.’ That’s a strange typo, I think. As strange as Cleo. I sip as despair arrives. I consider the evening, nothing wrong with it, I said, I love you. And I meant it. Tonight was the night to spend the night together. Was. Was. Was, I keep thinking. I pour another drink and take the glass with me as I head out back. A whoosh of the sliding glass door and I am looking at my grassy expanse. Although it is changing from what it is.

I see a blue-green tinted fuzz. I see two vaporous couches with a see-through coffee table in between. How did I get back inside? I see flames in a fireplace, the bricks of which look like foam. There’s a mantle clock yet it has a hundred numbers on its faceplate. The walls of whatever happened are a translucent fuzziness. Art hangs everywhere, more, it seems to float. The artworks themselves are a froth of pastel tints, everything suddenly colorful and blossoming and floating. In a way, it looks like my home. The use of color to balance a person’s mind seems right out of my work. It’s like I’m home. Though I’m not.

Cleo appears, she has changed clothes. Now she’s wearing a cotton ball, although it looks more like a cloud. What happened? Where am I?

“Shit!” says Cleo. “How did you get here?”

“I don’t know where I am. I don’t know how I got here.”

“Sit down. I’ve got to take a pill.” Cleo is nervous.

“I can’t sit, it looks like smoke. I’ll fall right through.”

“No. You won’t fall through. I’ve got to take a pill.”

Carefully I settle onto what seems to be a cloud as much as a couch. I need to sit. I am confused. Cleo is strange, this is stranger. It’s not the drink, at least it’s never happened before. It’s not a dream, I remember getting out of bed. I look at the glass in my hand. I swirl the liquid as my mind swirls. I am in love with Cleo. It’s the first time I have ever been in love, really in love. Is this what love is—a madness of a hallucination?

Cleo comes back into her parlor, still wearing a cloud, her eyes are brighter in a way I’d not seen before. Her movements are crisper. She’s deep in thought. She’s thinking like I’ve never seen before.

“Cleo! What is happening?”

Cleo takes a seat next to me. She plops in, cushioned to a soft landing by the haze of the couch. “Marlin, you write about what’s coming down the pike, and it has come down the pike. You are in the future you have predicted. Welcome to the year 2100.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“It’s fuzzy. My mind must be going. I didn’t predict fuzz. Or clouds. And you’re different,” I say.

“I took a pill. I drink too much. That you know. When I get home, the pill brings me back to where I should be.”

“Everything is different. This isn’t a dream. I am confused.” My nose crinkles.

“The aroma is the same, no? You have made some farmers in Tahiti and in Italy a lot of money,” she says.

“Huh?”

“Everyone uses that mixture now.”

“Cleo, your delusions.”

“Can I take off your slippers?” My slippers go quickly and she checks that the tops of my socks are still slipped over my heels.

“Will you take off your cloud?” I grimace.

Cleo chuckles. “I’ll take off my cloud later. I left the machine on and I am praying I’m not in trouble. I’ve got to check the news.”

Cleo moves her arms through space as though she’s dialing knobs. A clicking sound emanates from the translucence of the walls. She says, “Cleo Dytey, June 21, 2100. Scan.”

“Welcome to the first day of Summer, Cleo. No news,” says the wall.

“Thank God,” she says.

“The walls talk?”

“We’re safe.” Cleo settles down, her nerves visibly calmed.

“Safe from what?”

“There are laws, and I’ve got to get you home before I break another one,” she says.

“What laws? What does the wall mean when it says, ‘No news’?”

“I told you. The news no longer is reported. The news is predicted, just as you soon will say in your book. There is no news of my teleporting you, thank god. It was by mistake you arrived here, I left the door turned on. Nevertheless, it’s still a crime.”

“Cleo, what’s going on? Can you get me a stiff drink?”

“Coming up. First, take a look around. Your work is speculation, speculation of the spot-on variety. Everyone loves your book.”

She goes into a vapor that seems to have some inchoate kind of a refrigerator. She quickly is back with a beer. A cold can of Genesee. Okay, things are normal. We’re in 2000 and Cleo has cooked up a clever trick. That’s all.

“Your predictions became real, congratulations. You are seeing it for yourself.”

“No. I’m not. I didn’t predict a fuzzy home. What have you done? How are you doing this? Why does it look like my home?”

“I love you, Marlin. And I love your home. So, I made my own. The fuzziness? Yes, it’s your idea. I mean, no, it’s not. I mean, sort of.”

“No. I don’t believe any of this!”

“Oh my, dear sweetness, your description of the visual field and how it disturbs the thought process of the mind—”

“—You’re so together, so crisp. I don’t understand.”

“—it’s a pill. That’s all. Back to the future, the mach bands. The rhodopsin of the rods in the retina, the chemical that creates hard edges in the photoreceptors giving us detail in the visual field—”

“—Yes, the clarity of vision that rhodopsin produces interferes with the operation of the mind by offering so much visual information that fluidity of thought is interrupted. That’s one reason our dreams are dreams—our eyes are closed.” Cleo always knows what’s going on, I never can figure out how.

“Many people now keep their eyes closed almost always. They walk blindly to the teleporter and arrive at their destination with eyes shut. That they press the wrong buttons and end up in ancient Greece too often. Well, that happens.”

“I caused that?”

“Yes, the visual field is history, the landscape of the hidden mind is in view. And you caused the invention of functioning aerogels. The soft edges we need today. They allow the mind to work unencumbered. Soft edges and expressive color are the new aspirin. All cozondos are aerogel now. Makes it easy to relocate. The couches, the coffee table, the fireplace, and walls, and paintings—all aerogel. Even the structure. My cozondo is built of fuzzy bricks. The kids throw them at each other.”

“Oh, shit! Cleo. Where am I?” I try to steady my breathing.

“You’re on Mars. Remember, I told you I wanted to have my children on Mars? You thought it a delusion—truth is, it was my loose tongue. And truth is, it’s the truth.”

I chug the can of Genesee. “I do feel like I’m floating. Another beer, please.”

Looking around, I see that the sliding glass door leads to a patio. I need to look outside. I go to open it.

“No! Not yet.”

“But Mars! This I’ve got to see.”

Cleo walks over to the sliding glass door and seems to turn it off by sliding her hand down the edge of the frame. “You almost went home.”

The slider is a teleportation gizmo? “I think I want to go home.”

“In time. Let me enjoy your company. Yes, I’ve been a bad girl. We all are bad girls these days. And the boys are bad boys. You see, there no longer is time.” She walks to the fireplace and taps the mantle clock. “Yesterday, today, tomorrow—it’s all the same. This is confusing as much as it is scientific fact, and it is why everyone drinks liquor as often as possible. Or more than that. Marlin, you predicted the confusion caused by the advances of science. What you didn’t predict was the human response to the confusion. Everything now is upside-down, and everyone now needs a stiff drink.”

“Everything is different. Everything is colorful. Everything is better.” I take Cleo’s hands. “Even you.”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“Yes! So am I, I think.” I don’t know what’s going on. I think it’s love, or a hallucination of love.

“Yes!” she says. “It’s love.”

She loves me. “Will you love me tomorrow?” I say.

She taps the clock again. “Scientists have proven all of time is occurring at the same time. Cause and effect, they don’t exist anymore. We’re in a quantum world now. We’re everywhere in all of time. When we go through the teleporter, we’re not going anywhere at all. And I’ll love you in all of those places.”

“I didn’t predict this,” I say.

“Yes, Mister Briscoe, you did. You predicted it next year.”

“Everything is so different. And you.”

“I’m sober, that’s all.” She stands and moves her arms in space. “Vivaldi, now.” Music wells. She moves to the tones—ballet, jazz, moves so beyond modern I am certain I am in the year 2100. The verve of Cleo is there, and more so with scenes melting into scenes—blurry. Her anxious moves with calm moments in between are the science of new times recreating the art of living. The cavorting and shimmying, crouching and rolling, skulking and quaking, angelic ascensions and death-like plunges into the aerogel around us are the thought conflicts of a new epoch.

“Cleo, I understand it!”

“I think you’re ready to see the world. Whip off your clothes and get yourself a can of beer.”

The trip to the refrigerator is nothing I’ve ever written about, although it is. I leave my clothes on the kitchen floor and find Cleo with a second cloud in her hand. She puts the cloud on me, the fuzz sliding aside, then recombining behind me.

“First the patio, all my design.” Cleo motions for me to follow. She slides her hand down the sliding glass door same as before, she’s checking to ensure it is off. She opens the door and we step outside, floating a bit like the pictures on the wall. I have a bounce to my step. It’s nice. Outdoors is red stones for flooring in an ultra-modern, jazzed-out space with aerogel walls waving around us. Above, the night sky is filled with stars. But they are all wrong. No, we’re on the other side of the solar system from Earth. The stars are right. The summer sky is the winter sky.

“The atmosphere, where’s it come from?”

“We’re inside, the dome is clear gel.” She tosses a potted plant into the light gravity of the air, and having given it a spin so it goes upside-down, it bounces off the dome and returns to her hands.

“I think I want to move in.” I take the plant from her hands, put it down, and hug Cleo.

“Let’s cruise. You must see the neighborhood.”
I’m wearing a cloud and we’re going to walk the streets. Do they even have streets here?”

Cleo slides her hand along the slider. “We will teleport.”

“Where are we going?”

“To get you a cocktail.”

We go through the sliding glass and with a whoosh, the view transforms to the edge of a large room that seems to have no walls. It’s all lavender vapor with pink aerogel sculptures and mint-green potted plants placed in an arrangement like in a large Zen garden. The gaggle of people standing around looks like students. Young with wild haircuts. Real wild.

“If anyone asks, your name is, uh, Benny Molto. Do not let anyone know who you really are.”

Cocktails appear on the bar before us just as we get there. Cleo hands me one. “Martinis, they’re still popular. And telepathy is popular, too.”
“No.”

“Yes.”

We step away from the bar. A man with full-length, flying-out-everywhere hair comes over to us. His coif is many colors of an electric hue and blossoms out on all sides. He looks at me.

“Hello, grandpa. Welcome to Mars!”

I freak. “I’m Benny Molto.”

Cleo steps in, “I’m glad you’re here. Yes, Benny has just arrived from Earth, he was on the 8:10 tour and it was a rough trip.

“Name’s Kork62, pleased to meet you.”

I put my hands on my hips and stand tall, all to show I belong here. “Ditto,” I say.

“What?” says Kork62.

“Xerox?” I try.

Kork62 says, “Oh yeah.” He puts his arm around Cleo’s waist. “So, Cleo, you dancing this weekend?”

She pulls away from him. “Yes. Though I think I’ll go back in time. Vivaldi.”

“Who?” He moves closer to Cleo again.

Cleo shakes her head no. “Vivaldi. Some dead guy.”

“Sorry to hear.”
“Benny and I are going to mind out. Just us, sorry.” Cleo takes my hand, guides me away.

I turn back and say, “Pleased to have met you.” Everything is going so fast.

Cleo and I walk into an aerogel igloo. She takes off her cloud. She takes off my cloud. She says, “Lemon-light night.”

Everything in Cleo’s mind is in my mind. There are thoughts, emotions, colors, and calculations. Though her thoughts are apart from my thoughts, they’re together. We make love. The clouds say so.

“The future,” she says. We cuddle on the bed of aerogel.

“I know.”

“I mean our future.”

“Before today, I didn’t think we had a future.”

“We do now. I see it.” She looks me at me, her eyes flashing even in the dim light. “Let’s go look at the final chapter of your book. Perhaps it’s the beginning for us.”

Cleo puts on her cloud, then puts my cloud onto me. We leave the igloo and go behind the bar where the floor is lit by a spotlight. Cleo says, “You’re going to flip.”

A whoosh transforms the view to a sea of colorful people, all young, all with wild hair, many naked, the rest wearing clouds. Tall buildings enclose the crowd, much of everything is orange-colored or tinged with orange. The crowd is looking up at a sphere atop a pole on a building, the sphere is glowing crimson and the realization comes to me—we are in Times Square in New York City. The countdown is on for the ball to drop. I’m glad it’s a warm evening.

“Happy New Year’s Eve!” Cleo hugs me.

The ball starts to drop. “When are we?” I say.

“We’ll be in 2100 in one minute.”

“I don’t believe it!”
“You wrote it.”

“I don’t remember.”
“You’ll see.”

The crowd chants as the ball drops. “57. 56. 55.”

I hold Cleo. “I love you!

“There’s a future for us.” Cleo squeezes my hands.

“Are you making a joke?”

The crowd surges. Everyone seemingly slinging a bottle of liquor and most seem drunk and confused. Many are dancing wildly to crazy music. I realize this is wrong. The tones should be calming, calming like the atmospherics that one hears between stations on an old radio. I need something to settle my mind. I tap a nearby shoulder, ask for a sip from their bottle.

Cleo pulls me to her. “We have choices to make.”

“Right now?”
“It’s a good time for it.”

“49. 48. 47.”

“I think I want to go home.” I’m getting jostled by the crowd, it’s unsettling, it’s like having the wrong colors in one’s home.
“You can do that. Or you can stay here.”

“With you?”

“We can stay as we were. Or we can have our children on Mars.”

I am understanding Cleo so well, this after a year of confusion about us. “But, it’s against the law for me to be here.”

“Do you want to stay?”

“33 32. 31.”

The colors are intense. The crowd is huge. Fuzzy sculptures tower over everyone. Color stimulates the mind the way fuzz disperses obstacles to thought and together they allow one’s mind to easily explore the universe. My thoughts are flying, untethered from the world. “Cleo, why is every night like the first time?”

“I wanted to visit, and I always forgot I visited the night before. I’m sorry, I’m a drunk. I’ve told you that, and you can see it. Everyone is a drunk.”

“Stimulation and de-stimulation. The extra mental energy created with a fuzzy environment and the ever-present colors must be quieted by a bottle of booze?” Overactive minds need to be numbed by alcohol. “I always thought you were crazy. I’m sorry.”

“I’ve a loose tongue, and the mental landscape you created is overpowering. I wanted to tell you. Your ideas are too much.”

“26. 25. 24.”

“I haven’t even finished the book.”

“Yes, you have. Your book is the culture of today.”
“It looks like madness.”

“You can fix it in the next chapter.”

Over-stimulation, a problem I hadn’t considered. This has turned an ordinary crowd into a mass of multi-colored nudity on hooch. I’m holding Cleo tighter than ever. “I must fix this.”

“You’ll be changing the future.”

“Sound. Sound applied properly tunes the mind to the vibrations of the universe. Yes, researchers see that today. Sound is the element I have forgotten. Vivaldi is the answer!”

“Put that in the next chapter.”
“No. My work on visuals is finished, I see a step forward. Next is to find the sonic tones that minimize the madness I’ve caused. The imbalance I created can be softened by sound and this also will spur more invention. Selected sounds recreate the operation of the mind as much as do fuzz and color. I see it now.”

“10. 9. 8.”

“It’s going to be a great chapter.”
“No. It’s going to be a new book.”

“You haven’t finished the last one.”

“Yes. I have finished, you have said so and this scene proves it. I will write a new book. Sound is the new king.”

“That’s why I love you. That’s why everyone loves you.”

“I’ll stay here and write.”
“But, there are laws.”

“3. 2. 1. Happy New Year!”

The scene turns into a blue-green tint of madness with folk dancing in every style under the moon. Others are skulking with bottles of liquor to mask their confusion. My mind is flying, Cleo’s eyes are flashing. I see what I must do, I will break the law. My mind is accelerated by the color and the fuzz, the decision is made for me. An author always is the prisoner of his book.

“Cleo, I’m pretty certain I want to be a prisoner of the future.”

fin

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