Chapter 4 redone

Let me preface this by saying that this chapter in particular is very much not set in stone. Cuts may be in order and I am also considering adding a scene where Gregor talks to Tom Basket about quitting, but I still need to work out those details. Other scenes and information may get shuffled around and put in different contexts with different details, etc. Again, this is not set in stone. Just what I have right now.

Chapter 4, "Seemingly Stagnant"

He woke up to his cat on his chest, its green eyes staring straight into his. He rolled his eyes to the right and found the glass ball. The red orb had changed. Now encased inside were long, drooping petals of a red flower, the same color the orb had been, their ends touching and pointing in a single direction. He picked it up and found it warm to the touch. He also discovered that no matter how he handled it — rolling it over and over in his hands, shaking it, tossing it gently onto the bed — the flower inside did not move; the petals remained fixed in their direction.

They pointed north.

When it was time, he took this ball with him on his walk to work, along with Macata and Buzby, the latter chirping a cheerful tune. The ball continued to lead him in the exact direction of Tom Basket’s Hardware Emporium. When he passed through the entranceway the flower swirled back into the red yolk. And when it was time to go home, it pointed him back. He did not know what to make of this.

The next morning he passed by Daniel Clayton Clooney. Gregor nodded in greeting to the detective.

Except the detective didn’t recognize him.

“Who are you?” Clooney replied to the nod.

Gregor had nothing to answer him with.

He lived a simple but tiring life. After a time he started to learn and remember names.

“Hello, Mrs. Nebeker. How are you doing today?”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“Looks like we got some tape,” — BEEP — “some scissors,” — BEEP — “a couple of cleaning solutions,” — BEEP, BEEP — “and a bulb.” BEEP. “That’ll be all today?”

“Yes sir, it surely will.”

“There you go, and have a nice day.”

“Thanks, you too.”

“And here, looks like some sweet-smelling flowers for Mr. Williams’s garden. How are you today, Mr. Williams?”

“Fine, thanks.”

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

“That’ll be all?”

“Yep.”

“There you go, and have a nice afternoon.”

“Take it easy.”

“Will do, thanks. Just the two buckets of paint today, ma’am?”

“Yes...”

“Long day?”

“Oh yes. The final errand of the evening.”

BEEP. BEEP.

“Well there you go, and have a good one. Get some rest. Mr. Willer, a magdrill this late at night?” BEEP, ka-thunk. The sound of security deactivation. “Have a good night, sir.”

“Good night.”

He scanned hammers, he scanned wrenches, he scanned saws — bricks, wood, concrete, nails, screws, dowels, more hammers, more wrenches, more saws, drills, screwdrivers...

Days passed. Weeks passed. Maybe months. The days became indistinguishable. After a time he could not remember how long it had been since he had first awoken. The futility of his life wearied him, nagged him. He was alone in a cold and dreary world.

And nowhere did he feel worse than in the very midst of his peers.

Tom Basket called for a store meeting one day. Everyone had to attend. It took place right after the store closed. Gregor sat in the middle of the group, pen and notebook in hand. They were his only friends here.

“Guys, I want to congratulate you all. This past quarter we’ve achieved 150% of our sales goal. Totally unexpected, out of the blue. You’ve really done something monumental. You gave excellent customer service . And as a reward — ”

“Are we all getting raises?” someone called out. Everybody laughed.

“No, no — ” Tom chuckled.

“Then some kind of party cookout?” said another. The same response.

“No, not exactly, although I suppose that’s not out of the question. No raises right now, no free food, but you’re all getting bonuses. When you help me, I help you. I just want to be clear on that. I appreciate all the work you do, and I know the customers do too. Customers first, remember. Keep them happy, keep them coming back. In these last few months, you have. Let’s keep doing it. Thank you. Thank all of you.”

And then Tom Basket proceeded to hand out awards for “jobs well done.” Gregor watched as the workers whooped and clapped for each winner, calling out jokes and making each other laugh. Gregor alone did not laugh, neither did he smile.

And so he vented his feelings onto his notebook.

I am a stranger here. I do not belong. I’ve known this from the first day, and the feeling has never changed. I am a stranger. I do not belong. I do not belong. I do not belong.

This mantra repeated through his head just like the Sentence. But unlike the Sentence, every iteration signaled pain rather than hope. And in this context the Sentence mocked him, bit at him, tore at him, for its distance, its vagueness, its obscurity.

Then he asked himself a question.

Do I want to belong?

He found the answer more complex than he thought originally.

I do want to belong. I want to have what they have. I want to have friends. I want to be recognized for the work I do and be respected by my peers. But I feel so removed from this world. I really don’t belong. And as much as I want to be a part of them, I know I want something different. Not higher or better or superior, just different.

That was how he retained some semblance of humility. By calling what he wanted “different.”

I’m like an outcast, but worse: someone nobody knows or notices. Not an outcast but a nothing. A zero. I want to get out. I want to leave. I want to be someone higher and do something better. Something that matters. Something that’s important.

This is a job. It gets me money. Money so I can buy food and other things. Things that keep me alive. Alive so I can continue working as a cashier. So I continue to get more money.

And now these people are getting so excited and worked up about something that has no, absolutely no significance. All these awards mean nothing. I suppose that’s their choice, to value this work, and they have the right to be contented about it.

I’m not contented by it. But I wish I got one anyway.

He went home that night and would have cried himself to sleep if he knew how to cry. But his pets, truly his only companions, gave him sufficient comfort. Macata the cat and Buzby the bird provided the only true emotional connection he had. While not always in his immediate vicinity (cats being curious folk, and birds liable to explore the sky), they always came back, and joined him in his daily journeys to and from town. They slept when he slept, and awoke when he awoke. They played together, as best a cat and bird can. Macata would try to catch Buzby with a surprise pounce, and Buzby had a great time pretending to be unaware until the last possible moment, only to flutter away, just out of reach.

And always, every single night, he would examine and explore the strange window. Touching it gave him just the slightest inkling of peace, and it reminded him that there was indeed something different about him, something that set him apart. The lines of shadow, on the other hand, gave him a sick, almost fearful feeling whenever he saw them. And so he avoided that sight as much as possible. He much preferred the window and the glass ball, even if it were the latter that kept him going back to Tom Basket’s day after day.

I don’t know why I keep following it. I don’t know what it is, or why it changes directions, but every time I follow it I get a tiny inkling of peace, really tiny, infinitesimal. But it’s there. I take it as a confirmation that this is right. And that’s the reason I haven’t gone anywhere else. It tells me to stay here, to keep going to work, and to keep going home again.

It pointed me in a different direction today, though. This morning I woke up late, or so I thought, and ran all the way to work to be on time. This I did on instinct, without thinking at all. If I had thought about it I would have either realized I wasn’t scheduled that day, or I would have wondered why I would be running to go to a place where I feel so dead and empty.

When I found out it was my day off, I didn’t know what to do. So I brought out the ball, and it pointed up north. I followed it to the waterfront beaches. On an impulse I went for a swim, something I could not ever remember doing. It was a new experience for me, but I found it soothing and even therapeutic. I think I’ll do it more often. And I’ll keep on following where this ball tells me to go.

The work remained ordinary, faceless, nameless. It trapped in the small talk he was required to give. He greeted the people with pleasantries, and waved them off with valedictions, always the same, never varying in structure or tone. It wasn’t long before he was burned out. He considered quitting, but he knew next to nothing of the outside world, and didn’t know where he could find anything more.

He was never met with any awkward situations regarding his memory. Conversations at Tom Basket’s were never very deep, nor very personal, and he got along with an instinctually quiet, almost shy demeanor as he absorbed everything he heard said. This must have been how his former self behaved, because nobody ever asked any questions.

One time he overheard a conversation about amnesia, and speculation about what it would be like. A co-worker said it would have been “a waste of the first thirty years of my life. I would have lived all that time for nothin’.” His fellow said jokingly, “Would there be a difference? You still ended up here.”

The listeners laughed, but Gregor was unnerved, for he was thinking almost the exact same thing, but not jokingly at all. Then he chided himself, berated himself, because those people had real relationships, families and friends, people in their lives that made it all worthwhile, and he didn’t, and that, that was the key. Or at least an essential part of it.

I’ve seen families come into the store. What they have makes me envious. There is something in that image that speaks to me, calls to me, makes me want to be a part. Today I saw two young people, a father and mother, a little older than I figure I must be, holding hands, with a little boy running around, and a little girl looking around at the world with large, innocent eyes. I want to have that someday. I want connection. I want family. I want love.

He found it interesting how most of the conversations he heard, and even those he initiated with the customers, began with such supposedly caring words, and yet no true feelings ever emerged, no confidence was ever kept, nothing new was ever discovered.

“Hey man, how’s it going?”

“Good. You?”

“I’m good.”

“What’s up?”

“Nothin’, nothin’.”

“How are you doing today?”

“I’m fine, thanks. And you?”

“Doin’ well, doin’ well.”

“Today going okay?”

“It is what it is, man. It is what it is.”

“Cool. Catch you later.”

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Not much, what’s up with you?”

“Just work.”

“I know what you mean. What’s your shift?”

I learned Tom Basket’s real name today. It was only about ten years ago that he changed it. He was in a garden shop and saw the words “Tomato Basket” on a label, but the first word was shortened to just “Tom.” That was his real first name shortened, so he decided right then and there to make that his name if ever he started over, career-wise. His full name is “Tomalion Nisonechte Maceta.” He said he doesn’t use it because “Tom Basket” is so much more catchy and casual, and it speaks more to the common folk. It just simplifies everything.

Gregor would remember this bit of trivia for a long time to come. A unique name exchanged for a common one. Heritage for mediocrity. Splendor for insignificance. Majesty for mundanity.

He waited. He waited on the shift, he waited off the shift. He waited at his station, for customers to pass through. He waited in the break room until it was time to return to the front.

The breaks weren’t valuable in and of themselves. Nothing productive was ever accomplished during them. A little bit of a rest, sure, from standing for hours on end. All they did was serve as an end to look forward to, a small, miniaturized end that led him through the rest of the day.

That’s all he really lived for. An end, somewhere, to all of this.

Death?

“Hey, Gregor. Someone was looking for you yesterday. Did he ever find you?”

Gregor, in the break room, looked up from his notebook, where he was about to touch pen to paper. “Someone was looking for me?”

“Yeah. I guess he hasn’t caught you yet.”

The high, nasal voice belonged to Zissner, the decorated cashier.

“No, no one found me...” Gregor said, trailing off. His eyes flicked back and forth, focusing on nothing, while his thoughts raced to and fro, no finish line in sight. Then his gaze once more fell on his co-worker. “Do you know who it was?”

“The guy who came in here? No, never seen him before. If he was from Middleton I would know him. Wore a green cloak and he had an eyepatch. I’ve never seen a guy with an eyepatch before. And I’ve been in this town my whole life.”

To Gregor Townsend this information was like an electric current suddenly coursing through him. His visage brightened, but his mind lost focus on his immediate surroundings and responsibilities. They seemed, somehow, to matter less than they did before.

-----------------

As regarding his job, that day ended successfully: nothing different happened; he kept the status quo; he fulfilled his primary role as cashier. And again he left work disappointed, but this time a little more than usual.

The next day he made a point of people watching, observing everyone he passed in town as he walked to work, and everyone who went through either his line or his co-worker’s. He even went and asked Tom if he knew anyone with an eyepatch, anyone who might be looking for him. Tom merely shook his head and looked back down at his clipboard. Gregor sighed, and went back to the front.

On his way there he fell in step with an embarrassed couple dragging a screaming child out of the store. The scene struck him, and immediately upon reaching his checkout station he withdrew his notebook and sketched some thoughts.

I don’t know what the kid was screaming about. Probably something trivial. Something that didn’t actually matter very much. But to him, it was everything. He was screaming his head off. That’s a sign of real pain. He couldn’t have what he wanted, what he felt he needed. So it really must have been a kind of torture for him. He doesn’t know better. But — his parents know he’ll be perfectly fine without it. They know he’ll get over it. They know he’ll forget about it. They know the pain will pass. Perhaps even within a few minutes afterward. And in the long run he’ll be better off for it. It won’t matter anymore and he’ll have learned discipline, and he’ll have learned patience.

He wasn’t quite sure why it hit him as it did, but the parallels gradually began to come into focus...

But before his thoughts could get anywhere substantial, a woman came up and placed a few things on his desk. He didn’t even bother to raise his eyes to meet hers. Just started adding everything up. A few potted plants, flowers, shrubs. “That’ll be...” some price or other.

“Thank you,” she said. "The flowers smell so nice, don't they?"

Gregor could hear the smile in her voice. He looked up into sad but twinkling pale blue eyes and a world-weary face. Her long blond hair was turning gray and she had the appearance of having aged rather quickly.

The past several months and his own story had taught Gregor that it was futile to identify anybody with a simple adjective. Very few can be realistically judged solely on their outward demeanor. The words of the Middleton philosophers floated in the air around him, words from his roundabout with Daniel Clayton Clooney, words about perceivers, how everybody lives in their own universe, their own world filled with totally unique experiences and associations and pains and paradigms and talents and failures and needs and wants and histories....

The woman’s smile widened as she focused on Macata, who came trotting up to her out of nowhere.

“I’ve heard of you two before,” she said in a ghost of a voice, weak like a whisper. She knelt down to pat Macata on the head and scratch behind his ears. “This is Macata. And you are his Gregor.”

Gregor glanced around; no one else stood in his line. “Um, yeah, yes,” he said.

“Albus told me about you.” Her fingers moved under the cat’s chin. “Said a few people wondered if Macata was one of mine. But this animal did not come from me.”

A name flashed in his mental vision. “You’re Caroline?” he asked.

She looked up at him. “I am. And this is MacGregor.” She nodded at the cat.

“I’m sorry?”

“Since he is Macata and you are his Gregor, his full name is Macata Gregor. But he would like to be called MacGregor. He feels very attached to you.”

MacGregor. Hearing the name made another piece of the puzzle connect. It felt right. It felt authentic. He didn’t protest.

“MacGregor.”

“Yes,” she nodded, and at once Gregor could see pain behind that weary smile, behind those twinkling eyes.

“Thank you,” he said. “I, uh, hope those flowers work out.”

“I’m sure they will nicely. If not, I’ll be back!”

“Have a good afternoon.”

She left. Gregor’s fellow cashier came up to him.

“What did Caroline have to say?” he asked.

“Just stuff about my cat. Who is she?”

“You don’t know who Caroline Sanderplumb is?”

“Come on, I just forgot.”

“I guess you haven’t been around here forever.”

Gregor caught himself before saying I haven’t? “So who is she?”

“She’s the cat lady. Lives up more towards the woods, northwest. Takes care of her son alone. He’s been sick for a long time. Husband died in that war in Ganothra six or seven years ago, or something like that. Technically he just went missing, but who goes missing for seven years when the last place anyone saw him was in battle?”

Battle. A war. Ganothra. All new to Gregor.

“How do you know all this?”

“Common knowledge. She’s kind of famous in this town. It’s about time you’ve seen her. Comes into the store sometimes. I’ll point her out to you next time she comes in.”

“No, I don’t think I’ll forget her anytime soon. But, uh, thanks.”

The co-worker shrugged and went to help a customer. Gregor turned back to his own station. Thoughts barely began to swirl when another voice called out behind him, this one clear and masculine.

“You are Gregor Townsend?”

Gregor’s head turned upwards so fast he nearly hurt his neck. A man wearing a green cloak and an eyepatch stood before him, matching the co-worker’s description perfectly.

What his co-worker hadn’t communicated, however, was simply how cheerful this man looked. An odd thing to notice in such a situation as this, yes, but he radiated warmth with every facial expression he made. His kind features, though adorned with an eyepatch on his right eye, were made up in curves incredibly easy on the eyes. His bright, remaining left eye and open, impish grin exuded so much happiness that it spread onto Gregor like sunlight. From the briefest glance you would think of this fellow as a man who could retain a positive outlook on life no matter what sorrow or darkness happened to afflict him.

“Yes, I am Gregor Townsend,” Gregor said slowly, his heart in his throat. “And you are...?”

The man ignored Gregor and stepped to the side. He pressed his finger to something small and red near his ear and said words that made Gregor’s heart beat faster than it ever had before:

“The white-haired one is in Middleton. He works at Tom Basket’s Hardware Emporium.”

Then he turned back to Gregor.

“Thank you,” he said through a grin, and with a bow of politeness he walked away, out of the store, his green cloak swishing behind every step.

Gregor stared dumbly after him, completely bewildered. It had happened so fast! And now there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing except to run after him. But his hopes for greater knowledge had already disappeared along with the man into the bustling crowd.

Back to waiting. Back to stagnating.

Chapter 3

Chapter 3, “The First Day of Drudgery in the Moonlight of Mystery”

It took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the darker interior of the store, where artificial white lights replaced the golden sunlight. He passed two workers, one a small, angular man with a razor-thin mustache and the other brown-haired and middle-aged, stress epitomized in his face and in his every movement. Each of these stood at the head of a long line of customers waiting to purchase their products. Like the atmosphere outside, the store was full and busy.

He was about to walk further into it when another hand suddenly gripped his arm and jerked him away. So sudden and fierce was the grip that Gregor thought it was Clooney again, but no, it was the stressed out man. This, as it said on his name badge, was Tom Basket himself.

“Hey look, it’s Gregor, everybody!” Tom announced to the line with a clearly and dutifully feigned cheeriness. “He’s going to be the one to help you now.” And then, in a subtle whisper laced with lethal aggravation, “When you get the lines down, come to my office. We need a word.”

Gregor stood there, frozen, as he took in the faces of the customers and the strained smile of Tom Basket. They were expecting him to take over the job Tom had just vacated. This is when Gregor realized in full force exactly who he was to these people and to this town — and it horrified him.

But just as Tom was pushing Gregor to where he had just been standing, a lucky thing happened. Tom Basket caught sight of another employee just a few aisles away, still within hearing range.

“Randolph!” he called out. The employee turned. “Come over here. I need you here.” And then to Gregor, in a low voice, “Let’s go back to the office right now.” And then, to the customers, with the cheerful grin: “Randolph’s actually gonna be the one to help you. Here he comes.”

As Randolph obeyed his boss, Tom began his walk to the back, Gregor right behind.

“How could a man with a name like ‘Tom Basket’ ever be so angry?” one customer whispered. “It’s such a cheerful name...”

Tom was already several steps ahead of Gregor, who found himself walking unusually fast to keep up. They soon arrived at the office in the back corner of the store; Tom sat behind a desk covered by papers and files and Gregor across from him.

In his mind right now Gregor was attempting to formulate his story of that morning, and in such a fashion as to be believed. But in this situation, he, too, was feeling overwhelmed by stress, not to mention nervousness, and he found that he was not terribly adept and thinking under so much pressure. And so he sat there, waiting for the lecture he assumed was coming, with no idea how to answer it or articulate his reasons for not doing whatever Tom Basket was expecting him to do and be.

Tom, upon sitting, leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands over his lap. But with the opening of his mouth came the opening of his hands, and all manner of gestures animated the words he was saying.

“What do I say? What can I say? Gregor, do you understand the stress of frustrated expectations? I don’t think you do. I don’t think you realize what we go through up here when we expect a certain situation to be the case, and then it isn’t. And what I mean by that is that you are paid to be here, and then you aren’t actually here. And then, as a result, our own plans fall apart and we have to improvise. And you know the thing about improvisation — the customers don’t understand, and they don’t care, and then they suffer in silence, and then that glare! When they look at you as if all these long lines and lack of customer service — and that’s the most important thing, Gregor, remember customer service, always remember customer service — they can’t have the impression that we don’t care, that we aren’t doing our best to serve them. Because I am doing my best to serve them! And so is everybody else out there, and I appreciate their time and skills, and that’s why I pay them. So whose fault is it that the customers aren’t getting the best possible service? The service, by the way, that they deserve, for shopping at Tom Basket’s. Because that is who and what they blame: Tom Basket. It’s my name they drag through the dirt when they tell their friends and neighbors not to shop at Tom Basket’s. My name, my own self. This little store is who I am, and it is what I do. So when they knock the store they knock me. And thus I do my absolute best to make every aspect of this store the best it can possibly be, and that includes my employees, and that then includes you. So when we expect you to be here, Gregor, and you aren’t, or at least not at the allotted hour...what was your schedule for today, anyway?”

Gregor shrugged in silent apology. Tom Basket frowned, put on a pair of reading glasses, and picked up a piece of paper from the corner of his desk.

“It says here...oh.”

He looked up from the paper, his eyes peering over the glasses.

“Oh,” he said again. “Um... well you aren’t scheduled for today. You requested this day off. Why are you here then?”

Again, a shrug. “I didn’t know where else to go...”

It was then that both Tom and Gregor discovered that the door had not been closed all the way, because it opened a few inches without a turn of the knob. Gregor’s cat walked in — totally silently, as cats are prone — and jumped onto his lap.

“Who’s this?”

The cat leaped up to Gregor’s shoulder — “Uh — oh, this is Macata” — and then onto Tom Basket’s desk, and was now rubbing up against the latter’s outstretched hand, which then went on to pet him.

“I like cats, Gregor. I’ll let you keep him around. Maybe he’ll cheer up the customers, too.” Macata was purring now. Tom was softening. He rubbed his forehead as he scratched the back of the cat’s neck. His face looked pained. “It’s just the stress. I’m sorry for my manner. It’s the biggest sale day of the year, and when my employees don’t — well, again, that’s not your fault. You weren’t even scheduled today, and then you came in anyway. Well, Gregor, could you work today anyway? We really need the coverage.”

Gregor nodded, unsure of what else he could or would do.

Tom stood up and Macata leaped back onto the table and then all the way back up to Gregor’s shoulder in one continuous bound. Tom held out his hand to Gregor, and they shook across the table.

“So thanks, and I apologize,” Tom said, and went to the door to see Gregor out. “Now go out there and do your job. And have fun with those brand new hand scanners. They’re from Metagopolis.”

Macata suddenly hissed at Tom Basket. Tom frowned, and Gregor stood up to go. After two hesitant steps out the door, however, he stopped and turned around.

“Do you have any more questions?” Tom said with a sigh.

“Yes,” Gregor answered.

“Fire away.”

“What exactly is my job?”

Tom looked at him blankly and let forth another heavy sigh as he shut the door on Gregor without another word.

-------------

Gregor wandered tepidly through the aisles of the store, paying only lukewarm attention to the products on the shelves. He passed by customers and the occasional worker, the latter either helping the former or doing some other duty like stocking shelves or cleaning an area. Eventually he made it to the front end, but stayed half-hidden behind a corner, watching the work he knew Tom Basket wanted him to do.

The cashier, whose name tag said “Zissner,” stood at a station holding a little orange gun in his hand. The customer placed the basket of products she wanted to buy on the station’s desk. Zissner pointed the gun at a product in the basket and pulled the trigger. The gun emitted a green light that hit the product and, after a second or two, beeped. Then the green light disappeared, and the trigger was pulled on another product. He went on to scan every different product, but never multiples of the same product. When the process was finished, Zissner turned to a screen that Gregor could not see and touched it once. He then announced a number to the customer, presumably the price, and the customer proceeded to give him several coins. He placed these coins in little slots below the screen, and handed the customer a piece of paper. This allowed the customer to leave with both the products and a clear conscience. Zissner then took the next customer from a line of about four parties.

“Excuse me?” said a voice.

Gregor turned sharply around to find a middle-aged woman with a basket hanging from her arm.

“Can you direct me to the paint?” she asked.

Gregor looked at her, a blank expression on his face. His mouth opened to say words but none came. The most he could do was shake his head and stutter.

“I-I-I don’t...I don’t know...”

“I’ve seen you here before. Aren’t you supposed to know everything?”

Gregor looked at her apologetically and meekly shrugged. “I’m sorry.”

She sighed with disgust and walked away.

“Hey, Gregor!” called out yet another voice. Again Gregor turned and saw Randolph, his temporary replacement at the far cashier’s desk, calling to him. “Get over here! They need me at tile.”

Gregor swallowed a few times and made his way over, feeling the heat of the stares from the customers like spotlights.

“Look alive, Greg,” Randolph said as he shoved the orange gun into Gregor’s sweaty hand and left the scene.

Gregor smiled weakly at the next customer in line and looked down at the desk. A hammer. That’s all his first customer had. Trigger pulled. Green light and BEEP. Showed up on the screen, along with a number a dozen digits long. In the upper right was a button that said “Total.” He did as Zissner had done and touched it with his finger. A total price was produced, the cost of the hammer with tax added. Twelve lontais and two rences. Gregor found himself instantly grateful for Daniel Clayton Clooney’s words about money; otherwise he would be completely clueless as to how to properly do his job.

This process he repeated minute by minute, hour by hour, for the rest of the day. It took him very little time to familiarize himself with the work, so simplistic it was. But however simple, it also was tiring, in how long he had to stand in virtually the same spot for such long periods of time. He got a break every couple of hours, but didn’t have any kind of timepiece on him so he never knew how much time had passed, or how much there was left until his next break.

But nothing that day gave him a true break from his work. Nothing took him away from his innermost thoughts, the tormenting paradox in which he lived, the nightmare that he could not wake from.

Nothing until a moment that came towards the end of the day, when the light was fading and the sky was near eventide. A moment in which he happened to see the setting sun through the entranceway of Tom Basket’s. The sky was hot pink, and the sun a searing red. Blue clouds streaked across the heavens, masterfully painted as with the graceful sweep of an artist’s brush. Gregor looked straight into that red sun for four solid seconds, not deviating until his eyes burned. In that time, at that sight, he again heard the words that the day’s work had so successfully smothered.

Gregor Townsend exists for a wise and glorious purpose.

He was interrupted by a customer shortly thereafter. “Customer service,” Tom Basket had said. “Always remember customer service.” So Gregor resignedly returned to his work.

Half an hour later Gregor was excused for the day. The cat and bird joined up with him again as he left into the market plaza, now only occupied by a spare few. He walked the rest of the way home by the light of the moon.

He stared almost constantly at the black cloud still hanging there, alone in the sky. No other clouds hung with it; the unveiled moonlight cast illumination over the whole of the vast fields around him. When he entered his cottage he switched on a bedside lamp, sat on the bed, and looked around at all his possessions.

Ordinary household furnishings filled the room: a fireplace, a sink, and a stove; a desk, a stool, and a dresser; a sink, a few cupboards, and a doorway to a bathroom. He knew what these things were, but had no recollection of seeing or using any of them before. He knew what other things were, too. He knew language, and how to write. He knew laws of physics and simple ideas like cause and effect, freedom and responsibility.

He just did not know himself. Our white-haired young man was lost in an inverted fog. And he needed someone to listen to him. His eyes traveled over to the cat, who had followed him inside and made the area right next to Gregor’s pillow its bed. There he had curled up, seemingly apathetic to Gregor’s crisis, but there alongside him nonetheless.

But no, the cat would not do as his listener. Perhaps as a comforter, yes, and companion, along with the bird, but he needed his words to be caught somewhere, to empty out to someone or something that would understand.

And so his eyes left the cat and turned instead onto his satchel. He reached for it and pulled out the notebook and pen from inside. Then he opened to the first page. He saw those three one-word questions, and bitterly wrote down the answers as he knew them to be.

Who? — Gregor Townsend, a cashier

Where? — Middleton, Tom Basket’s Hardware Emporium

Why? — to sleep and eat

After staring at them a while he scratched out the whole thing. Then his gaze moved up the page to the first words he had written.

soar

sky

light

The dream. He had almost forgotten about the dream. The world from which he had awoken. He remembered little of it now. But for whatever reason, his thoughts turned to the sun he had seen falling just a little while before...

Below the scratched out portion, he wrote an amendment.

Those aren’t the real answers. I am not who I am right now. I am not the Gregor Townsend that works at the hardware store. I am not the Gregor Townsend that child saw yesterday. Somehow I know that I am different. I don’t know how, other than that I would not choose to live this life. I want to know where I came from, the real me, and where I’m going, where I need to go. And above all, I want to know why. I want to know what that wise and glorious purpose is.

He looked up from the notebook and let his eyes wander. Lost in thought, or perhaps in feeling, the white-haired young man stared at the opposite wall, upon which light from the lamp from the window fell. He did not immediately register what his eyes were perceiving, but when he did, he sat bolt upright, just as he had that morning.

A pattern of strange, dark lines had appeared on the wall. A system of arcane symbols and mysterious drawings. It could have been a map, or a diagram, or even a language. Painted on his wall? No, that wasn’t paint. As he stood and moved closer, the lines disappeared. But, he was surprised to realize, only where his person blocked the lamplight and created shadow. Testing this hypothesis, he stepped to the side, allowing the light to touch the wall. The lines reappeared. He tested it further, by turning off the lamp altogether. The cottage was in instant darkness, save for a crack of moonlight coming from the slightly open window shutters. He took their handles in hand and pulled them open. Moonlight poured copiously through, and the lines again reappeared, but this time with less intensity. Due, no doubt, to the dimmer light of the moon.

He stood there in fear and awe. Lines of real shadow, of material darkness, ablaze in the midst of light, impossible to be seen otherwise. Something mystical that our white-haired young man did not understand. Something he would one day come to.

Then he did a double-take at the open window.

It was not the scene outside that jolted his senses; that scene was rather ordinary: shadows of an oak tree, and a flowing stream beneath it; moonlight sifting through its growth and into the cottage window. No, it was none of that, but the window itself.

It proved not to be an ordinary pane of glass, for it rippled like liquid, like a wind-kissed pond. It distorted the outside world like glass or water would, almost as if the moonlit stream and tree were a painting, not yet dry. He reached up to touch it, entranced...

And as it looked, it felt. Wet, but more so: his fingers, upon penetrating this strange, fluid-like matter, lost their material form and added their color to the world beyond. A puddle of pink mixed into the dark green field where he had touched. At first this frightened him, and he quickly drew his hand away. The alien color twirled back in to the point where he had entered, and his finger returned to its original form.

He looked back and forth between his hand and the window, or whatever it was. No harm had been done. Cautious, but very much curious, he again reached in, this time with his whole hand. The pinkish color his hand supplied swirled into the nighttime colors of the outside world, mixing with the green of the grass and blue of the sky, interrupting their place in this painting that had depth in addition to height and width. He moved his hand from the dark rocks of the stream, up the tree trunk, through its many leaves, into the navy blue sky, across the sea of stars, and, with slight trepidation for a reason he did not understand and did not think about, into the very center of the full moon.

But the darker colors never got that far. Instead, they faded away as they went higher, disappearing as the moon’s shine grew closer. Upon reaching the source of night’s light, the dark colors had gone completely, for even reflected light destroys darkness.

The young man’s understanding of this, however, was currently very limited, and what he saw did not compute with his implicit understanding of pigment. But he took this in stride, for he understood that he didn’t understand, and respected the strangeness of this window, this strange, beautiful, interactive painting of reality. There was no way he could at that time. And as fascinating as he found it, its mystery did not compare with his own.

But it was, without any doubt, an integral part of his mystery. Something about this window felt right to him. As if it were another piece to his puzzle, and he had connected it with the few pieces he possessed. Of course, the puzzle would surely take hundreds, perhaps thousands more pieces to complete, and what he had so far remained positively inconclusive, but this was a start, and as everybody knows, a journey has to start somewhere.

He stripped his clothes off and prepared for bed. Nakedness felt much more natural to him. In the bathroom he saw his face for the first time in his memory. But while it was of course instantly familiar to him, it felt new at the same time. Like it had not existed until he saw it personally, and now it did and it made perfect sense.

As he was about to switch off the bathroom light, he noticed something on his nightstand, something that had thus far escaped his detection. It was small and round like a ball, made of glass or some other transparent, light-refracting material. In its center floated a red orb, like an egg yolk. After examining it for another minute, he set it back down, turned off the light, and made to close the window shutters. Before shutting them all the way, however, he chanced to see Buzby, the little blue songbird, singing and dancing in the tree.

And as he laid down in the dark, and thought about the strange and marvelous things he had just witnessed in his own home, and as he further considered the day’s experiences, both perplexing and piddling, mystical and mind-numbing, the Sentence continued to beat on, echoing back and forth against the walls of his skull, filling his otherwise empty mind.

Gregor Townsend exists for a wise and glorious purpose.

Chapters 1 and 2, REDONE

From the Fiery Depths to Starpara

Book One in the Metagopolis Tetralogy

by NEAL SILVESTER

Chapter 1

Gregor Townsend exists for a wise and glorious purpose.

With those words imprinted on his brain, the white-haired young man at the center of our story woke out of his dream and into a nightmare. He arrived in a panic, gasping and choking, as if he had just emerged from the sea after almost drowning. The world he found himself in contrasted harshly with his dream, as different as the depths of an ocean would be to a creature of the sky. Indeed, this was not far from the truth.

He sat upright in a bed, adrenaline flowing through him thick as blood, knowing nothing, remembering nothing, except that he had to be somewhere, had to rush out the door and get there as quickly as possible. He looked down and all around, finding himself naked and alone, the room around him lit a low, cool blue like just before dawn.

That Sentence that had accompanied him into this new reality held him in its clutches, repeating itself over and over again as consistently as the tide.

Gregor Townsend exists for a wise and glorious purpose.

He looked in consternation around the room, searching for answers, taking everything in as the overarching question of WHY? raged and slashed through him. He recognized nothing. Not even himself. All that populated his mind now was his memory of the dream world he had awoken from. But as second after second passed, the water of memory slipped through his careless fingers. And so a desperation to retain the sights and sounds he still remembered rose. And still he knew he had to get somewhere on time, very soon.

He bolted out of bed and over to a desk. There he found a pad of paper and a pen, which he took in his hands. He scribbled furiously the first three words that came to him.

soar

sky

light

That was it. Only those fragments remained. And soon, they too had gone away. He stared at the paper desperately, his mind totally empty. And knowing nothing but a compulsion to leave this little cottage and get there as quickly as possible, he set about getting ready.

He scrambled about the room, finding clothes, putting them on, and impulsively stuffing his notebook and pen into his satchel. He burst out the door and into the dawning world giving only brief mental mention to the notion that this wise and glorious purpose of Gregor Townsend had something to do with his need to get to this place, wherever it was, on time.

Outside he ran down a beaten brown path that led out from the door of his cottage and bisected a vast green field. His surroundings hardly changed from minute to minute. He paid little attention to them in any case; nor did he give any thought to where it was that he was going. His mind was fixated on his goal of getting there, and his body seemed to know where “there” was. He did not question it. Just continued to run.

After a while he heard the song of a bird. He checked the sky and found a little blue songbird flying just above him, matching his pace. Turning back to his path, he found he was shortly to come upon a fork in the road. As he drew nearer his steps slowed and the adrenaline that had been pumping through him seemed to fade away. He finally came to a full stop where the path diverged.

To the right it led north between two mountains. To the left, south into nothing. After a mere four seconds, he was promptly pounced upon.

The thing that pounced turned out to be a cat, but he did not realize this immediately. Totally overcome by surprise, he simply fell over. The cat, an autumn-colored calico, managed to hold onto his shoulder, where it had landed, by inserting its claws deep into the skin. In his pain and confusion, the young man wrenched the cat, and subsequently some of his own flesh, away from him.

He sat there absurdly in the dust, staring at the arrogant cat as it started licking dust and human oil from its fur coat. Eventually it stopped its elitist bathing and stared back at him, calm and straight. It had green, unblinking eyes. To the cat our white-haired young man said his first spoken words.

“So, what’s your explanation for all this?”

The thrill of urgency that had fueled his journey had all but tuckered out. Only a nervous churning in his stomach remained. He sensed that he was already late.

But late to what?

This simple question kicked off many more; it triggered a veritable onslaught of uncertainty, doubt, darkness and mystery. And for the first time he was able to truly take in the full existential crisis he was experiencing. He sat there, covered in dirt and dust, realizing he had no idea who he was, where he was going, or why he existed at all.

A wise and glorious purpose?

Questions zoomed again and again through his mind, all the questions one would ask upon finding oneself in the middle of nowhere, with no memory and no sense of identity, only an implicit driving desire to reach some unknown destination for some unknown reason.

A wise and glorious purpose...

His wandering eyes, following the little blue songbird still in the sky, found something else. Way high up in the middle of the blue was a lone black cloud. It did not bear the exact appearance of a cloud — it seemed to be stationary, solid, and solitary, no other clouds around it, completely out of place. Not quite a cloud, but some dark mass hanging there in the clear blue sky, watching over the world below.

The bird landed next to him in the dust. The cat rubbed against his legs. Its purring quelled his anger.

“Don’t attack the bird, okay?” he said to the cat as his breathing calmed. “You can come along if you promise that.”

The cat looked directly at the bird, then sounded a shrug with a mew. The bird, meanwhile, seeming to be as curious as a cat, hopped forward until it was near the cat, who bridged the rest of the distance. They touched noses. The bird let forth a cheerful chirp and flapped back into the sky.

After being assured of the cat’s admittedly reluctant commitment to refrain from eating the bird, the white-haired young man’s journey continued, his curiosity concerning his own mystery burning and propelling like fuel. The cat trotted at his feet and the bird flew overhead. The grassy fields grew thicker with foliage and shrubbery. He walked, then walked, and then continued to walk.

...a wise and glorious purpose. The meaning of that Sentence would give reason to everything. It had to be connected with his sense of urgency, his rush to get out the door and run north along the path. He had awakened with both of those things, and almost nothing else. That was why he kept walking. To understand. To discover. To know.

And soon a town entered his sights, nestled right between the two mountains. This, as he would come to find out, was Middleton, northernmost town on the central island of Pentasma. Cobblestone streets, quaint wooden homes, smoke pillowing out of forges, steam sighing from vents, a market based on shipping and minerals unearthed from nearby Mt. Oniz, all accented by the crisp salty air of the sea.

The town breathed, it laughed, it sang. Children gamboled about, chasing each other, playing games, getting in the way of their parents, who in turn went about casually doing their daily chores and discussing the latest gossip or news with friends and neighbors. Smiles greeted smiles and happy voices filled the air, creating a relaxed, carefree atmosphere for all. It almost made the young man want to smile, too.

A child bumped into him, and he heard words that made his would-be smile vanish:

“Sorry, Gregor!” and the little girl ran off, giggling.

Gregor Townsend. That was his name. The one who existed for a wise and glorious purpose. As he had suspected, even assumed. At last he had something concrete. And in hearing it he found that he had always known his name, though it had not existed in his mind until this very moment. A puzzle piece fit snugly into place. One of thousands left to connect.

He fluttered a forgiving wave at the girl and continued passing through the homes until he came upon the commercial heart of the town, where the dusty road turned to cobblestones, where he found even more busy, bustling crowds. Some of the townspeople dragged carts around, others dragged children; many, including Gregor, seemed to travel to and fro with no particular goal in mind. Conversations of differing tones and volumes between seller and buyer or betwixt customers gave the town a happy, buzzing murmur. Most of the stores around him stood strong as relatively permanent structures. For example, currently before him stood a hardware store whose shape was like that of a giant turtle shell. But today being a festival day shops and stalls of a more temporary nature had sprung up, capitalizing on the crowds.

He ambled eagerly through the streets. Somewhere in this town lay his destiny. The “wise and glorious purpose” for which he presumably existed. It was his own duty to find it. Find where he was meant to be.

“Hey!” cried a young boy, pointing at Gregor. “You didn’t have him yesterday.”

It took Gregor a moment to realize that the boy wasn’t pointing to him exactly, but to the cat who had been perched on his shoulder this whole time.

“Didn’t I?” Gregor said, his head tilted and a quizzical look on his face.

This confirmed his existence before this morning. He was a real person. He had a life in this town. That was certainly something to go on.

But the cat had not been with him.

“Did I have anybody else with me yesterday?” Gregor went on. Here he could start his pursuit of truth.

The boy shook his head.

“Did you see where I went?”

The boy shrugged. Gregor frowned. There were probably better ways of going about this than interrogating a child.

“Is he one of Caroline’s?” asked the boy, again indicating the cat.

This time it was Gregor’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know,” he said. “Just a new addition.”

His empty answer reminded him of his empty mind, which made his heart feel empty. Then he felt ashamed of his emptiness and quieted down, his burning curiosity doused. But his stomach continued to churn.

The boy looked at Gregor as if he didn’t know what to say, and ran off with his friends. Gregor stared after him and watched as he met up with some friends. Gregor wondered if he had friends, too....

Then something happened to make him realize the answer was Yes, he did indeed have friends too. The cat, out of nowhere, dug in its claws deep into his shoulder and gave a slight yowl. Gregor turned to face the cat to ask an irritated why? — but then he saw what the cat had been warning him of: about five feet away from his face, and covering ground fast, was some sort of giant reptile pulling a heavy, awkward cart behind it. One does not ordinarily stop in the way of a swiftly-trotting dragon, and the cat had reminded Gregor of this fact in case he had forgotten it along with everything else, because that’s what friends do.

Gregor jumped twice; the first in fright and the second to get out of its way. No driver directed the beast; it seemed to know its way around town. And, in fact, the rest of the townspeople stepped casually out of its way as if this were a normal occurrence. It was.

Now safely in the wake of the uncaring animal, Gregor had time to examine it more carefully, albeit from a rapidly-increasing distance. It was a dragon if he’d ever seen one. But compared to the dragons he knew (but could not remember ever seeing), it was like a lapdog to a wolf. The only remnants of wings were flaps of green skin hanging from its arms; the head was crowned by small, red, webbed fins and its claws looked filed off. Perhaps this dragon, if such it could be called, had had all its potentially dangerous qualities, both in disposition and in physicality, bred out.

As the “dragon” disappeared into the crowds Gregor gave the cat a pat on the head and a word of gratitude.

“Thanks,” he said. The cat purred graciously and nudged its head further into Gregor’s scratching fingers. The little blue songbird landed on a rooftop corner and let out a tweet only Gregor could hear. It was then Gregor decided to name his animals.

“Macata,” he whispered, looking at his cat. And then, looking at the bird, “Buzby.”

Just then a loud, hearty voice rang out, and a hand gripped his catless shoulder.

“Gregor Townsend! Your head is in the stars, young man. We certainly have a job ahead of us today.”

Chapter 2

An enthusiastic mustache and a pair of wide-open crazy eyes invaded Gregor’s vision.

“We are going to glean what afflicts you,” the hearty voice said. “Oh yes...oh yes oh yes oh yes. Notice, Gregor Townsend — if that is who you truly are — those four ‘Oh yes’es. What could that mean, exactly? Does it have to mean something? Everything means something. The question is, however, how much does the underlying meaning actually matter? These questions must be answered, and that is what I do. I will help you in your quest free of charge.”

Gregor was at first quite startled, and then thoroughly nonplussed.

“I’m sorry...I don’t — ”

“You don’t recognize me?”

“N — ”

“Not even a little bit?”

“I — ”

“A smidgen?”

“ — ”

“A hair? One of your white hairs? You don’t recognize me even in the slightest?”

“No, I do not.”

“Then right-o, young man! My detecting skills have finally hit their stride. Clooney is my name. Detective Daniel Clayton Clooney. I detect. I analyze. I solve. That is what I do.”

Detective Daniel Clayton Clooney wore a long, buttoned-up overcoat and a pair of dirty brown boots. His small eyes changed color in differing degrees of light. His eyebrows matched his mustache; big bushy things that were either threateningly intense or unexpectedly disarming, depending on his mentality at any given time. Unkempt black hair adorned his very animated face. He was the kind of man whose mouth flung spittle with every other word. It made Gregor blink a lot and feel very uncomfortable.

He put his hand on Gregor’s back as if they were old friends and started leading him through the throngs. Macata jumped down from Gregor’s back and navigated the forest of feet, only straying from Gregor’s shoes long enough to sate his feline curiosity on various random smells and things.

“Notice, Gregor Townsend, how here, in the markets, there are no decorations for the festival. No posters or banners or statues or games for the little ones. All the Vanos stuff is way up over there, in the central town square and beyond.” He motioned in a northerly direction.

“The what stuff?”

“Vanos. The Great Bird. The point of this whole town. The purpose of this place and its people.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Oh, I am getting ahead of myself. Vanos, the Great Bird, blessed with four wings, a veritable god among men. Or a god among birds, really. Saved humanity by taking a man and woman from a plagued continent to a plague-free continent. Many celebrate the damned myth still, though as you can see there aren’t any of the outward showings of festivity here, down in the markets. Just plain and simple bartering. But notice the crowds! Notice the commerce, the trading, the business! And take note of this, young Townsend: they aren’t this busy at any other time of the year! The town uses Vanos to promote its own economic growth. So they have all the decorations and nice things in their own nice little places, but no one cares down here in the markets. The decorations don’t matter except for garnish. The garnish of the Great Bird. Unnecessary for the most part, unnecessary for economic growth, unnecessary for wealth and riches! Do you see what I mean about the town? It exists to continue its existence. And not only to do that, but to flourish! To expand its boundaries and to enlarge the wallet! And you can see how it does. That is the reason for this town: to compound itself. It works for the holiday. The Day of Vanos is the point. All of these, the shops and stalls, your hardware store, all the vendors and all the soliciting that goes on down here —

“All of them, abusing the concept of growth. Which would not be a terrible crime; people have to eat and people have to build, but that is what drives their life. That is why they exist. Material things! Some of us, though, know different things. Some of us understand that there is more. The call, Gregor, the call. The call to attain something greater, some other higher purpose, or at the very least something higher than making money and growing economically. I myself have not had much opportunity to go elsewhere, and so I stay here, honing my deduction skills and growing ever sharper, day by day. That is my purpose.”

Given the subject matter, these words made a great impression on Gregor Townsend, and he stood there contemplatively for some time. It was in that twinkling moment that something inside Gregor... changed. A hidden trait...amplified.

“Thank the sky for them, though, huh?” Clooney went on. “Without all those characters who do real work for a living and don’t really care about the finer things in life, we wouldn’t have those finer things at all. Being an intellectually honest analyst, I must admit this.”

Gregor waited until he was sure Clooney was done before speaking.

“Okay, uh, Mr. Clooney, sir...you said you were going to help me understand things, help me figure out — ”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Townsend! Good heavens, we walked two paces and I was already off on another of my tangents. That’s what the detective does, though. Detect. Analyze. Solve. Look at every single thing from every possible perspective. The analyst’s mind will go where it pleases. But sometimes, I agree, it needs to be restrained.

“Now obviously the mission with you here is to bring you back to your senses. Although I would wonder what for. All you have to go back to is the hardware store. Aha!”

This made little sense to Gregor, but Clooney took out a small pad of paper from one coat pocket and a pen from another and jotted something down, presumably the rhyme he had stumbled upon.

“Well then, Gregor,” said Clooney, tucking away his things, “Let’s get you going on this recovery process.”

“I do have a question, though.”

“Fire away.”

“How did you know — how did you know to come talk to me? What about me did you analyze — ”

“I first saw it in your movements,” Clooney answered, cutting Gregor off. “The way you were so shocked at the existence of Legole. The cat helping you get out of Legole’s path. A cat I haven’t seen before. Also in your hair. Your white hair is unusually messy today. And in your eyes. Detached, wondrous. You looked lost. It all happened very rapidly, and I acted on instinct. Now, explain your dilemma a bit further, please.”

“There really isn’t much to tell. I woke up this morning without any memory.”

“None?”

“Nothing.”

“No memory. What about memory of memory?”

The dream world came to mind. A dream he couldn’t remember one whit of, except for the process of awakening and trying to keep it from slipping through his figurative fingers.

“I remember having a dream. But I don’t know what happened in it.”

“Then we shall have to determine who you are, Gregor Townsend. I know who you were; I had spoken with you on occasion in yesterdays past, but I think it should be crystal clear that today is not yesterday. Today I’ll help as much as I can in the retrieval of your yesterdays, but you are going to have to make up the tomorrows yourself.”

They stopped by a shop called Vognettle’s Battle Wares. A big bald man stood behind the counter. Clooney pushed Gregor forward and presented him as if displaying a product he was trying to sell.

“Who do you think this young man is, Mr. Vognettle? What do you see in him? Check his eyes,” he said sagely. “Those are the most important.”

“I see Gregor Townsend,” said the man in a mean voice and a matching expression. “The white-haired kid. What of it, Clooney? Clooney loony?”

“Now there’s a man who does not know subtlety,” Clooney said, leaning in close to Gregor as if he were giving him valuable advice. “Best leave him out of our journey.”

The reference to his hair made Gregor glance around self-consciously. No one else in the entire crowd had hair like his.

The detective guided Gregor to a spot just a few yards away from a fruit seller, who was surrounded on three sides by carts and baskets full of apples, bananas, and cherries.

“Observe these times, Gregor. This fruit, that man....notice his hawk-like eyes over all of his produce. The eyes are the most important. Small, beady brown eyes. Hovering over, constant vigilance; the fruit is his and he will not let it be stolen. His hands, look at his hands: if not dealing directly with a customer then they are floating over the fruit. Almost like an extra pair of eyes, standing guard. Now, let’s see if we can shake things up a bit.”

He turned left and right, looking for something. Or someone.

“Ah, here we are. Perfect timing.” He reached out his hand to touch the shoulder of a small but belligerent-looking boy passing right by them. “Nicholas Halladio, stay here a moment.”

“My name’s Nick, Clooney,” snapped the boy.

Clooney knelt on one knee to speak at the boy’s level. “Nicholas, I want to make a deal with you. I will give you three coins —”

“What kind of coins are they?”

“Unimportant. I will give you three coins if you manage to snatch an apple without getting caught.” He indicated the barrel full of apples on the far side of the stand.

“Is the apple mine afterward?”

“Also unimportant. But yes.”

The boy went immediately about this business, and ducked into the crowd.

“Or no,” said Clooney as an afterthought. “Would it be his? The apple.... Gregor, tell me what you think.”

“I’m not sure — ”

“Would that imply relativity then? That the apple would be his if he stole it. I suppose by nature it is relative... If there is more than one opinion, more than one judgment, then, by logic and by Vanos, it would be a relative situation.”

Clooney drifted away, lost in thought. Gregor took the time to think back on Clooney’s words of purpose, of the existence of this town, and the words of his own awakening. He found them, that Sentence, still repeating in the back of his mind, but much more softly now, like simmering cider, or a babbling brook.

Gregor only half-watched as the clever boy handed over one coin to the seller and picked up an apple at the same time. It took him a moment before he realized what he saw. The boy then drew back into the crowd for a moment before popping up right next to Gregor and Clooney.

“I have reached a conclusion,” stated the detective out of his stupor, looking down at Nicholas. “The apple would be yours.”

“Of course it’s mine. See?” He tossed it in the air and caught it again. “I want my three coins.”

“I’ll give them to you out of my good nature and intellectual honesty,” said Clooney.

He reached into his pocket, withdrew three of the same kind of coin the boy had paid one of to the fruit-seller, and dropped them one at a time into the boy’s open, waiting hand. Gregor, smiling, noted the boy’s cleverness but Clooney remained unaware.

“So how does that help me regain my mind, Mr. Clooney?” Gregor asked after Nicholas had run off.

“It helps you thus: that boy learned from his father those tricks of the trade we just witnessed. Slyness. Subtlety. Thievery.”

“And cleverness,” Gregor added.

“No doubt. So we can tell who that boy is and what he will one day become by looking at his parents. He will look like his father and act like his father. You wonder who you are. You wonder why you are here. Look to your progenitors, Gregor Townsend. It is they who you will be like, and thus who you are.”

“Progenitors?”

“Parents. Ancestors. Your heritage. Kittens grow up to be cats, and pups into dogs.” At this moment, Macata leaped up onto Gregor’s shoulder. “The offspring of a cat will always grow up to be a cat. You want to find your source? You want to know who you are? Look to your parents.”

“I wasn’t aware I had parents to look for. Don’t I live alone?”

“Well yes. I suppose you do.”

The conversation stalled for a moment. Gregor broke the silence.

“What are the coins?”

“Money,” said the detective.

“I sort of figured that out on my own.”

“Oh, yes. I had forgotten about your forgetfulness. Anyway, those coins were rences. Five rences make up a lontai. Twenty lontais make a namenah. A hundred namenahs is a cenamenah. To put it in perspective, one rence could buy one apple.”

Despite his own words, Clooney remained oblivious to what little Nicholas Halladio had done, and they continued on. They stopped at a little shop selling jewelry.

“And here, Gregor, we see a perfectly practical object lesson,” he said, opening the door for him.

“May I help you find something?” said the round and small jeweler behind the counter.

“No, we’re just looking,” said Clooney as he picked up a navy blue bracelet from a display and showed it to Gregor.

The jeweler eyed them something fierce, Clooney in particular. He seemed, for whatever reason, to be on the verge of throwing them out of the store.

“See this ornament,” Clooney said, “decorated with this stone, this particular precious stone. To use the system of currency we just established, it’s worth about six or seven namenahs.”

“It’s worth — fifteen namenahs by my judgment, at least” said the jeweler in a blustery, upset, offended manner.

Clooney let forth a laugh. “No, I’m fairly certain this is worth seven. Eight is the highest I, or anybody else, would ever go.”

The jeweler’s face began to turn red, not in embarrassment but in a kind of barely-restrained rage. Clooney either did not care or did not notice.

“What makes it interesting, Gregor Townsend, is this gem. A tiny sapphire suffused with zultaire, which is of course mined from the quarry on Mt. Oniz, just a few miles away to the east. You saw it on your way here. The quarry was originally for ordinary minerals, but just a few years ago they found zultaire in abundance underneath the mountain, and they’ve been mining underground ever since. This kind of gem was once most valuable, most precious. Now everybody has them, and what was once unique and beautiful has now become common and even vulgar to many’s tastes. To mine, certainly.”

The jeweler turned ever redder and his breathing became tense and short, puffing in and out, his blood pressure indubitably rising.

“But if you were to cross the sea, in any direction, to whatever land you so chose, and carried with you a sack full of these, it would profit you much. Sir,” Clooney said, turning to the jeweler, holding the bracelet. “May I suggest seeking employment across the sea? Over on the Ganothran continent, perhaps, or even Metagopolis, for instance — ”

Macata, who had been sitting nonchalantly at Gregor’s feet, suddenly hissed in Clooney’s direction, interrupting him and making all three pause suddenly, staring downwards. Seconds passed before Clooney brought them back by finishing his sentence.

“ — you could make a fine living. Much better than here.”

“No,” huffed the jeweler, red in the face, eyes bugged, and his whole person flustered with fury. “You may not suggest anything of the sort.”

Clooney set the bracelet down on the counter and once again put his arm around Gregor’s shoulders in a fatherly manner. “The stubbornness of some people is staggering,” he said as they walked out. “I give some business advice and get thrown out. How’s that for justice?”

Gregor tried to throw an apologetic look behind him at the jeweler, but the door swung shut too soon.

A reasonable distance away, Daniel Clayton Clooney faced eastward and pointed.

“That is Mt. Oniz,” he said.

The image of Mt. Oniz, once a quarry, now a mine, struck Gregor and burned into his empty memory. No, it did not look familiar, but he was sure he would not forget it very soon. The greater part of the quarry was on the opposite side of the mountain, looking like a grand staircase of stone. But at the very top it curled partway around the summit, giving the inhabitants of Middleton a brief view of the silver-colored core of the mountain. From where Gregor and Clooney stood it dominated the landscape like a great behemoth craning its neck around to watch over the town.

“They are using tools and technology from lands across the sea to mine it. Very advanced. It helped make Middleton what it is. Which isn’t much, not yet, but with huge amounts of potential. On its way to much growth.

“And over there,” he said, pushing Gregor around and pointing westward, “is Mt. Oblaid. No mines, no quarries. Left in its natural state. Now it is merely a pleasant hike. Farmer Ajay’s vineyard is over there. A nice little tourist attraction. He makes green wine.”

A rather ordinary but pleasant mountain covered in trees. Much bigger than Oniz but much less visually striking.

“I find it interesting,” Gregor said, indicating Oniz with a jerk of his head, “that so much violence could lead to so much progress.”

“Violence! Who said anything about violence?”

At that moment they heard a loud BOOM from the distant quarry.

“Ah, violence to stone and ear,” said Clooney, nodding his head in understanding. “And I suppose yes, there have been a few injuries...and one or two deaths....”

“Then would you say it has been worth it?”

“Well, if one were to calculate how much better off the great majority of the town is, and that nothing worthwhile is ever without risk, even to life and limb, and to say that the greatest victories are the ones fought the fiercest, with the greatest rewards upon winning and the most hellish consequences upon losing...then sure, I would agree that it was worth it.”

A short pause as both contemplated.

“But there is more I think!” said Clooney with a start. “That mountain is being carved out, like a statue that was once a block of stone. The path to progress is paved with pain.”

Gregor let this sink in. Then, while they were on the subject of pointing to distant things, he said, “I have another question.”

“One of many, I’m sure.”

“What’s that dark thing up there in the sky?” Gregor pointed up at what he had called in his mind the black cloud.

“Another mountain, of course!” said the detective, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Gregor narrowed his eyes on Clooney in a frown, then bit his lip and tried to forget it.

By now they had reached the far end of the markets and were now rounding the path back to the point at which they had first met.

“So have I helped at all, Mr. Townsend?”

“Well, I don’t think we’ve ‘gleaned what afflicts me’. But you have given me a lot to think about in the meantime. And who knows, maybe it will lead to — ”

“Then we’re not finished. We must glean. We must!”

Clooney stopped a passing woman.

“Do you know who this young man is?” he asked with a heretofore unseen zeal that more matched a revolutionary than a poor, greasy literary detective.

“Sure, Danny, that’s Gregor from Tom Basket’s you’ve got there. I think Tom’s been asking about you...” she said to Gregor. And then, closer to Gregor’s ear, “You’re a good boy to humor the detective. He’ll let up soon enough, you’ll see.”

Clooney, not having heard the aside, pulled Gregor in something of an overenthusiastic way over to a small group of conversing old men, all sitting on logs or stumps in the shade of a large tree off the main path. Like Clooney and Gregor, these men had apparently nothing better to do with their time than talk. Clooney, leaving Gregor slightly behind him, entered their circle without a word, and stared intensely at each of the men in turn as they spoke. All of them noticed the intrusion (and the intense glares), but did not show it (excepting, of course, the current speaker’s slight faltering of words, which was immediately followed by his quick hop back onto his train of thought). Otherwise, they didn’t react much to Clooney’s presence. The detective, following their conversation with both eyes and ears, did not breathe a word — not until one man used the phrase “worlds without end.”

“Worlds without end?” Clooney said in a strangely accusatory voice, as if he were chief prosecutor in a criminal trial. “What do you mean by that in your context, sir?”

“I mean the idea of lives,” said the man with a hint of impatience, as if he were answering a child’s question. “We are all each centers of perception, sense perception, and the viewpoint we see the world from is us, ourselves. Each of us is in a wholly different world from the other. The act of murder is to snuff out one of these worlds. Without a ‘me’ there is nothing. By ‘worlds without end’ is meant the idea of little worlds being created every day, and that we have the capacity to continue life on forever. Every time a child is born, a whole new world is created. And if one were to kill a person, and in so doing destroy a perceiver, you also destroy a world. A world that could have created more worlds. Worlds without end.”

“But that only holds true,” interjected one of the circle, “if every one of those centers of perception actually perceived.”

“What do you mean?” said another. Soon many were speaking.

“What I mean is this: How do we know that everybody else is as human as we are? What if, say, I was the only real being, and the rest are just soulless props?”

“Just random organic matter that could or could not have its own center of perception.”

“That’s a fairly egotistic philosophy.”

“Just an idea, and an interesting one.”

“Not to mention frightening. In that case, the only world that exists would be that which we perceive from moment to moment.”

“So it’s not whether the tree, falling alone in the forest, makes a sound, but if the tree exists at all, if there is nobody there to see it.”

“Do things only exist if they are perceived?”

“There’s no way to prove or disprove that idea. If we ever tried to measure such a thing it would be instantly self-defeating.”

Clooney pulled Gregor back to the path.

“Those men are totally pointless,” he said. “Their words are totally pointless. No, Gregor, you need something more material to go on. Come, let’s talk to this gentle lady here...”

As Clooney interrogated the poor woman, Gregor stood distantly to the side, pondering over everything he had seen and heard in the last few minutes with Daniel Clayton Clooney. As his ears heard the noise and bartering all around him, and as his eyes observed the frenzied peoples and their busy, self-continuing ways, he remembered the Awakening Words. At first they spoke softly to him, but as they repeated, it gradually grew to the power of thunder.

Gregor Townsend exists for a wise and glorious purpose.

“Useless, again, useless!” Clooney cried in his energetic way, departing from the woman and again wrenching Gregor along by the arm. “These people can’t help us with anything. Who needs them! They know nothing. Funnily enough, the same goes for you. That was, most indubitably, another object lesson. And that’s proof that you belong here! They know nothing and you know nothing. Have we found a solution at last? Ah, here we are.”

The turtle-like structure of the hardware store stood before them.

TOM BASKET’S HARDWARE EMPORIUM

“We have finally found where you belong. You should know, Gregor, that your hardware store is not exempt from my earlier condemnation.”

“Wait wait wait. My hardware store?”

“Yes, of course. The one you work in. That Tom Basket is a nice enough fellow, but still nothing matters to him more than sales. And so we arrive! Here is your place, where you shall make your money and earn your bread. And if I’m not mistaken, where you should have been half an hour ago.”

And down, down, down went Gregor Townsend, plummeting from wise and glorious heights into the depths of mundanity and mediocrity as he realized...everything. Who he was, where he was going, and why he was desperate to get into Middleton as quickly as possible.

He had been late for work. That’s all.

No, no, no, it couldn’t be. He had a destiny. He had a purpose. As sure as he knew anything, he knew that. He knew there was more. This couldn’t be it. There had to be a reason he had lost his memory in the first place. And a reason those words, that Sentence, kept ringing in his head. There had to be.

Right?

Gregor stared into the blackness of the store’s entrance, defeated. Clooney went on without skipping a beat, not noticing the dumbstruck and deflated persona of his makeshift student.

“As to how I make my living, which I’m sure is the next question you were going to ask, I say... my boy, I beg. It is my place in the world to ask questions that nobody else does — ”

“Nor anyone else cares about,” interjected a passerby.

“Lovely,” said Clooney, looking a little tired.

Gregor had not heard a word after Clooney’s revelation. He said, his eyes narrow and his nostrils flared, “Why did you try to help me so much?”

Clooney smiled sadly and gave a helpless shrug.

“You were the only one who listened to me before.”

Gregor just stared at him, feeling a bit uncomfortable.

“Okay, thanks...” he said wearily as he walked away from Clooney into Tom Basket’s Hardware Emporium, into his drudgery, into his doom.