Nov 03 20
“But what makes you so sure? I mean it’s not like there’s anyway to prove it. I certainly can’t think out that far, not even with like a fraction of the factors you seem to think one can be are aware of.” She said while placing the folded, still sandy blanket into the trunk next to the tote of picnic stuffs. No reply; just the sound of a distant car and night insects. She closed the hood firmly, flicked absently through her phone, and looked out at the incommensurate dusk. Then decidedly corporeal, walked around and entered the driver’s side, next to where he was already sitting. He was staring out into the tangle of darkening foliage with his hands in his lap; perhaps a bit too impotent in feel for her liking. He was thinking of Rousseau’s The Snake Charmer. The leaves and sticks moved slowly and then faster outside his window, as the car built up speed to join the highway.
“Come on, you could easily argue that my whole paper showed the perspective to be well reasoned — it’s the purpose we rewrote it, no? Even your last chapter said as much.” His tone wasn’t angry, just full of the common tension of couples; the provincial grist that results from everything being fine but not at all great. “I was speculating; I made it clear that everybody is ripe for parody. That every perspective is specific to a farcical degree.” Right at the moment she said “farcical degree” she turned her head back from glancing at his profile to the road. Something like a large large black snake was coiling across. Without thinking she turned the wheel and slammed the breaks. The sedan screeched; their seatbelts locked. The car began a violent tumble down the remote unlit hillside. When the savagery ceased neither moved. A large moth, probably a hyles lineata, was startled from a shrub and earnestly butted the passenger headlight — failing to succeed at some intention it flew away.
Still neither the man nor woman stirred, though the colonies of demodex folliculorum, in both their eyebrows were still going about their business. The man was the first to come to. He saw that the woman was a sort of horrible milky purple color. Since the car had landed upright, and he was relatively unharmed, he was able to get out. He limped around to the other side, momentarily making a long sinister shadow on the dirt in front of the lights. He unfastened and dragged her onto the small spot of quasi-sandy earth. He felt for a pulse and listened for breath. Neither. He had a flashing image of her swimming only an hour ago, too far out for his liking. He had been a lifeguard in college and started to administer cpr. Some tears and sweat dropped from his face mingling with the blood on her forehead. After his sixth cycle, her color was returning. In the middle of the seventh, she took a loud deep breath and coughed. She was conscious. In a moment she realized what happened. He softly embraced her and told her not to worry and to lie still.
Beside the car there was a creature. It wasn’t part of any lore or biological awareness of humans of any time or era; and wasn’t visible to anything around the area. Due to a random pause in some sort of dimensional traversal (a “hike” is close but not really accurate) it had alighted right next to where the accident had stopped. It was in what might be called a spiritual mood; though this too is not quite correct (translation is impossible). Because of the configuration of its “senses” — the way it perceives — the whole thing (the car, the man, the woman, the moth) appeared as puffs of spirited energy. To it the entire sequence seemed supernatural and affirmed something mysterious. It receded elsewhere on its way. The man searched for his phone.
“Come on, you could easily argue that my whole paper showed the perspective to be well reasoned — it’s the purpose we rewrote it, no? Even your last chapter said as much.” His tone wasn’t angry, just full of the common tension of couples; the provincial grist that results from everything being fine but not at all great. “I was speculating; I made it clear that everybody is ripe for parody. That every perspective is specific to a farcical degree.” Right at the moment she said “farcical degree” she turned her head back from glancing at his profile to the road. Something like a large large black snake was coiling across. Without thinking she turned the wheel and slammed the breaks. The sedan screeched; their seatbelts locked. The car began a violent tumble down the remote unlit hillside. When the savagery ceased neither moved. A large moth, probably a hyles lineata, was startled from a shrub and earnestly butted the passenger headlight — failing to succeed at some intention it flew away.
Still neither the man nor woman stirred, though the colonies of demodex folliculorum, in both their eyebrows were still going about their business. The man was the first to come to. He saw that the woman was a sort of horrible milky purple color. Since the car had landed upright, and he was relatively unharmed, he was able to get out. He limped around to the other side, momentarily making a long sinister shadow on the dirt in front of the lights. He unfastened and dragged her onto the small spot of quasi-sandy earth. He felt for a pulse and listened for breath. Neither. He had a flashing image of her swimming only an hour ago, too far out for his liking. He had been a lifeguard in college and started to administer cpr. Some tears and sweat dropped from his face mingling with the blood on her forehead. After his sixth cycle, her color was returning. In the middle of the seventh, she took a loud deep breath and coughed. She was conscious. In a moment she realized what happened. He softly embraced her and told her not to worry and to lie still.
Beside the car there was a creature. It wasn’t part of any lore or biological awareness of humans of any time or era; and wasn’t visible to anything around the area. Due to a random pause in some sort of dimensional traversal (a “hike” is close but not really accurate) it had alighted right next to where the accident had stopped. It was in what might be called a spiritual mood; though this too is not quite correct (translation is impossible). Because of the configuration of its “senses” — the way it perceives — the whole thing (the car, the man, the woman, the moth) appeared as puffs of spirited energy. To it the entire sequence seemed supernatural and affirmed something mysterious. It receded elsewhere on its way. The man searched for his phone.