Snapdragon

What if... Speculative fiction for thinking adults.

--"Is the space-time continuum, as we perceive it, merely a lull in a universe so dynamic, so vast, and so complex as to forever mock our efforts at comprehension?

Snapdragon

“It’s always been the curse of our species to miss the forest for the trees. Let’s just hope this perfectly natural tendency won’t sidetrack your eager young minds, as written exams will definitely be forthcoming.

“Now, because of that curse, our ancestors were blind to the existence of Cells--those imperceptible, entirely permeable photosynthesizing organisms--stretching galaxy to galaxy, feeding on starlight, fabricating life’s building blocks throughout eternity.

“The Organic Universe is a fact, not a theory. We are a Cellular phenomenon, the crowning glory of an evolution directly linked to mutations brought about by the rudimentary metabolism of Cells. But the Big Picture just keeps getting bigger. Through a process that is still unclear, the sudden movements of Cells, their kicks, appear to temporarily produce destabilizing fissures in the proximate fabric of space-time. Or is destabilization actually a positive? Sometimes it seems the more we learn, the less we know.

“Today we’ll examine a dramatic example of Cellular influence: the demise of a Cell bridging the Canis Major and Ursa Minor Dwarf galaxies, some two and a half millennia ago. That Cell’s death throes radiated in waves that violently disrupted the continuum, producing temporal and spatial anomalies which instantly readjusted with bizarre and unpredictable results.

“The first jolt was the seam-breaker, a major rocker that plumbed our solar system and hopscotched the centuries--we caught a piece of it last year in Argentina. The aftershocks were comparative trifles, producing erratic continuum shifts involving mere hours and miles.

“According to our most precise instruments, the initial shockwave impacted just outside of Jerusalem, in the Middle East, in the year 33.

“Okay. I know, I know. Nobody’s going to deny the extraordinariness of all this, historically speaking. Call it coincidence, call it intervention, call it whatever; it’s all metaphysics. What we’re interested in is the physics. And, judging by every reading, that wave’s spatial focus coincided with the Hebrew prophet Jesus of Nazareth, at a point in time when witnesses of that century, to a man, adamantly described his body’s ascent into the ether.”

And he hit the garbage face-first; dazed, disoriented, naked, emaciated. The piled material was so unfamiliar he froze on impact: black plastic trash bags, cardboard boxes, aluminum cans. Rather than dirt or desert sand, the ground was some sort of smooth, continuous gray brickwork. He dragged himself into a sitting slump, recoiling at the heat and blare of traffic. Rundown buildings, rusted-out vehicles, dirty raggedy people sagging in doorways…and a dark woman running up in clopping footwear, shamefully dressed, her face painted, her hair high. Behind her, a similarly dressed woman, perhaps a friend, was shouting:

“Mary! You get your butt back here, girl!”

But the first woman ran right up to him and said breathlessly, in a tongue that made no sense at all:

“C’mon sugar: you can’t just lay here with your privates public!” She giggled musically, her breath fruity sweet. After a quick search through the rubbish she came up with a torn and stained blanket, draped it around him so that his head was admitted through a central tear, and pulled his arms out from under the sides. She continued rooting, talking incessantly, at last producing a sprung bungee cord with enough play to serve as a belt.

Thus covered, he reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. The woman trembled at his touch. When she looked him in the eyes her face became a fluid mask of remorse; the expression falling, melting, the tears pouring down her cheeks. He rose to his full height and the woman simply dissolved at his feet, kissing his toes and ankles, weeping uncontrollably.

“Talitha kum,” he commanded, and turned at a shout and bustle.

The other woman stormed over, yelling at the top of her voice: “Get away from her, you nasty freak! I’ll call a cop. I’ll mace your homeless a*s in a hurry.” She kneeled to embrace the weeping woman. “You all right, sweetheart? Oh, Mary, what did he do to you, girl?” She looked up with venom in her eyes, but the newcomer was already walking along the curb, staring in amazement at the cars and stoplights.

The ground rocked, hard, as though the planet had momentarily ceased its spin. The man from Nazareth, like every other upright human, was knocked flat. Half a minute later he raised himself on one elbow and blinked at his surroundings.

He was now sprawled on a high cement stairway, just outside a stately steel and glass building alongside a much cleaner street. Other folks were frozen in similar postures of dismay, on their bellies and knees.

A man in a gray suit tumbled down the steps and helped him to his feet. “Are you okay, sir? Wow! That had to be it: that was The Big One for sure.”

It was a surreal scene: parked cars, their motion sensors triggered, honking repetitively nearby and in the tapering distance, like calling prairie dogs. Drivers hunching outside paused vehicles, men and women spilling from buildings.

The helpful man looked him up and down. “Do you need medical attention, sir? Can you walk?” He blinked. “Como esta? Por favor?” His fingers did a pantomime of a person walking. The answering stare was intense, but of no assistance. The blanketed figure opened his mouth and spoke something that at first struck the suited man as merely intelligent gibberish. The man in the gray suit shook his head and said with exaggerated clarity, “I am Mister Edmond. Mister John Edmond.” The man nodded, intensifying his stare. At last Edmond ran an arm around the man’s waist and sat him back down. He flipped open his cell, thumbed a number, and said excitedly, “Larry? John here. Yes, of course I felt it. Who didn’t. Look, I’ve got some guy here in shock. He’s not mute; he just spoke a dialect I’ve never heard, but definitely Semitic. No, I can’t leave him here; there’ll be aftersho--” and on that abbreviated syllable a tremor brought down a hail of broken glass. “Did you feel that? Okay, then. Meet you at Giggles? Good enough. Bring something this poor fellow can wear; he’s just draped in an old blanket. Get going before traffic freaks. Right.” Edmond led him down the steps, smiling vigorously. “Don’t be frightened. I’m going to introduce you to Professor Baling. He’s a linguist at Pepperdine. Practically famous. We’ll get you nice and fixed up, and once we’re all in communication mode we can learn who you are and maybe get you a job or something.” There was another rumble, long and low. Edmond’s brow furrowed and he tugged gently, but with urgency. “Please trust me, sir. This is your lucky day.”

The lunchtime stampede: Giggles was packed, shire to shire. The man from Nazareth now sported lime-and-purple jogging sweats, ten sizes too large, a gift from the kindly and portly Professor Lawrence Baling, seated directly opposite and to Edmond’s left. The Giggles servers whizzed back and forth on their Star Wars roller skates with the strafing turret sparkle-hubs, wearing enormous Harry Potter eyeglasses, Princess Leia fright wigs, and their signature Jolly-Wally Grab-a-Jabba fanny packs.

At last a server responded to Edmond’s wave. She screeched to a halt at their table, the brakes on her skates emitting flurries of canned Gremlins giggles. “Hail thee, fellow Jedis, and may the farce be with you.”

“Muggles are morons,” Edmond responded dutifully. “We’re ready for menus.”

“Energizing!” She whipped two out of her jetpack. “Right Chewbacca atcha!”

“I think maybe I’ll go for a Filet O’ Flipper, or else just a Silly Salad with Chuckling Chicken, or maybe, um…”

“Oh, yoda, yoda, yoda.”

“You’re right. I’ll have a Bilbo Burger, hold the Magic Mustard, with a side of Funny Fries and a Shimmy-Shimmy Shake.”

“Just coffee,” said the professor. “How about our friend? He can’t have eaten for days.”

The server straightened. “Friend? Friend? Where’s Waldo! Where’s Waldo?” Then, appearing to have just noticed the little party’s third member, she moved her twisting face in close, a hollow Keebler countenance of psychotic glee. “And who’s this happy hobbit?” The man from Nazareth recoiled, not sure what to make of it all.

Edmond danced his menu side to side, much to their server’s delight. Finally he said, “Let’s go for the Golly Sandwich with plenty of Gee Whiz, a Jumbo Jelly Sundae, and a Han Solo Soda to wash it all down.” Edmond raised his eyes at their glaring guest. “You’re not like a vegetarian or anything?” The answering stare was cryptic.

“On me,” the professor beamed.

Their server yanked an imaginary handle on her forehead, tittered, “Back in a flush!” and zipped away.

The professor smiled encouragingly, clasped his hands on the table, and spoke a line or two of what Edmond recognized as modern Hebrew. Their guest narrowed his eyes. The professor tried again before branching out. After a few minutes of this Edmond felt superfluous to the proceedings. A temblor rang cutlery in the Giggles kitchen. Edmond’s eyes were naturally drawn to the in-house television monitor, its frame painted to blend seamlessly with the Frodo’s Playground mural over the registers. Ordinarily the broadcast news was enhanced by the Giggles digital FunnyVision program, so that the anchors’ hair and facial features automatically received magnetic treatments of superimposed rainbow wigs and rubber noses, but today’s news was so important, and so sobering, that the man-oh-manager felt compelled to temporarily squelch the FunnyVision program altogether. Employees all stopped what they were doing, their painted smiles and hobbit hoods surreal in contrast to the sudden mood shift.

Film clips moved by almost too rapidly for the mind to assimilate: a Turkish neighborhood buried in rubble, thousands of Pakistani survivors marching out of a smoking valley, Japanese tsunami victims dragging their belongings down a ragged coastline, aerial films of a Detroit neighborhood consumed by flames.

But the real shocker came from a sweating seismologist, surrounded by microphones, lights, and anxious faces, speaking in a monotone so contrived it inadvertently raised blood pressure all over the nation. No foci could be located, this man stated; no hypocenters, no epicenters. It appeared that the planet Earth itself was in a state of “sporadic seismic arrest.” He had no idea what those data meant, knew of no protocol for dealing with such a profound phenomenon, and hadn’t the foggiest notion of what steps to take. He knew only one thing for sure, and that was that there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

Edmond dazedly turned back to the table. The very act of avoiding the set somehow made it all a dream; there was a palpable reality in these known faces, something down to earth, something almost comical.

Baling seemed to feel Edmond’s eyes on him. He lowered his head and studied his clasped hands.

“Well?” Edmond ventured.

The professor looked up, grinning wryly. “The dialect is ancient Aramaic, and it’s flawless. Says he grew up in Galilee as a carpenter. Says he was tried in the court of Pontius Pilate, and was crucified at Golgotha outside of Jerusalem. Says he remembers a vivid and extended dream state, then a feeling like his whole body exploded. The next thing he knew he was sprawled out in the garbage--by his description the eastside ghetto over on Fourth and Military.”

“O-o-o…kay.” Edmond’s fingernails tapped the tabletop. “Look, Larry, I’m really sorry I rousted you for nothing. I don’t know what it is--I just had the feeling there was something more to this guy than meets the eye.”

The professor leaned back. “Oh, you may have been right.” Baling clasped his hands behind his head and spoke ruminatively. “It takes a great deal of dedication to create and maintain a messianic delusion at this level. I’ll give him credit: he certainly does his homework. He doesn’t believe he’s Jesus; he’s way beyond that. He knows it--in a matter-of-fact way that goes without ego gratification or any self-interest whatsoever. He’s lived the fantasy so long it’s modified his personality. He’s Jesus, John; so get used to it. He certainly has.”

Their server wobbled back to the table, obviously subdued by the news, her Gandalf’s staff limp as a sobered lover. She listlessly Spongebobbed the tabletop before laying out the plates and cups like a woman packing her final bags. Her Darth Vader cloak appeared to have lost its gleam, her Spock ears looked wilted and pale. Still she gave it her professional best, duly tapping her light saber on the tabletop while performing a truly Tolkienian full-fairy curtsy. But somehow it just wasn’t the same. She looked at the professor and her particolored face scrunched and drained. “I’m--I’m just so, so sorry,” she tried. “My children, my children…”

The professor watched in bewilderment as the server slowly rolled away, the blinking Harry Potter broom between her legs mournfully swishing side to side across Cap’n Sparrow’s Deck.

The man in the jogging sweats grimly studied his happy plate. The aroma made his nostrils flare and cinch. He stared uncertainly at his benefactor.

And the whole place seemed to lift off its foundation.

The man from Nazareth pushed himself to his feet.

He was now in a dank alley surrounded by looming, broken-down tenements. Two blocks away a department store’s roof collapsed before his eyes, even as a pair of helicopters shot through a stark wedge of moonlight between leaning buildings. There were fires leaping here and there, and the startling sounds of the occasional smashed display window. He exited the alley with all senses perked, his eyes hungrily absorbing every new sight, each sudden motion. This side of the street carried the ghosts of the old neighborhood: closed shops and overgrown walkways, abandoned cars and neglected yards. He noted a small group of men loitering on a street corner. Their eyes narrowed and flashed as he passed; after a minute the group began to follow as one. Presently he came across dozens of kneeling citizens outside a boarded-up building, fighting to catch the words of a gesticulating orator in an Armani suit. The man from Nazareth had just halted to observe when someone behind him almost knocked him off his feet.

“Hey,” the offender said angrily, but with more impatience than hostility, “you wanna make a little room here, pal? We’re trying to follow the sermon, okay? Jeez.” This person then fell to his knees, smacked his hands together, and beatifically raised his eyes.

The man from Nazareth continued down the sidewalk, pausing to stare in looted shops. A dozen yards ahead, a group of four men stepped out of the shadows between buildings. One whistled, and there came an answering whistle to the paused man’s rear. He turned to see three more striding up purposefully. Their footfalls were echoed; he turned back to find himself trapped.

There was no preamble, no feeling-out process--the fists clubbed his head, the shoes found his stomach, and he could only lay curled up on the sidewalk while the hands ran through his jogging sweats. But a penniless, helpless victim is just a diversion on a ripe swollen night in a city caught with its pants down; the punks got in their kicks and split.

He had to drag himself into a doorway. When he got his wind back he scraped himself up and moved along, using the looted storefronts for support. In one display he observed a neglected, still-connected television running the disaster buffet; the orphans, the wasted homes, the collapsed freeway overpasses. But it didn’t strike home, didn’t feel real--the technology was way too strange.

A groan just off the sidewalk got his attention. He limped over and discovered an old man trapped in an avalanche of fallen bricks. The mortal nature of the injuries was unmistakable; he reached down to place a palm on the forehead.

A very bright light struck him, followed by the urgent sound of rubber meeting curb. An amplified voice said: “You in the sweats! Remain where you are! Keep your hands where I can see them!”

Two officers, a man and a woman, stepped around the car with flashlights raised. The driver now leveled his gun, jerking the flashlight in his other hand in a demand for complete compliance. The woman, keeping her distance, crept by and crouched near the pile of bricks.

“Talk to me,” said the man.

“Unconscious,” the woman responded. She righted herself, muttered, “This one’s dead,” and swung her gun around.

The male officer immediately threw him into a combination wrist-and headlock, slammed his face up against the car’s hood. “Relax completely,” he grated. “I want you to go absolutely limp. Do we understand each other?” He leaned hard. “Are you holding anything that can hurt me?”

The woman patted him down thoroughly. “Nothing obvious. Pits and crotch clean.”

“I.D.?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay.” He kicked out the legs and pulled both wrists behind the back. The female snapped on cuffs. “I,” the driver grunted in his ear, “don’t know if you’re aware that this city’s been placed under martial law. I further don’t know if you’re aware of the implications. Looters can be shot on sight. Muggers--creeps who waylay old men under cover of chaos--can receive some of the harshest sentences on the books. When you’re rotting in that cell with only your conscience for company, I just want you to thank God it was us who got to you before some decent armed citizen.”

The woman ran her flashlight’s beam back and forth across his eyes. “What’s your name, sir?” He blinked. She shook her head. “Non-responsive.”

“So be it.”

The woman got the door.

The driver pulled the cuffs up to the shoulder blades and shoved down hard on the crown. “Watch your head,” he said.

You had to squeeze and slither to reach the desk, though there was far less processing than usual for that time of night. Fact is, the place was one crisis from anarchy: just too many officers coming and going to make sense of it all. Detectives, Fire, National Guard, even Coast and Parking had occupied center stage at one time or other. And each successive temblor critically wracked the nerves of these men and women, the very men and women trained to hang onto their cool under the direst of circumstances. This was bigger than law enforcement, bigger than crowd control, bigger than major disaster. The families of these officers were in some instances unaccounted for, their homes and valuables left naked to the mob, and there wasn’t a damned thing they could do about it. And still the reports came streaming in; over the radio, over the television, over the Internet. The earth was breaking up around them, brimstone was spewing high. The sky was falling, and there wasn’t a damned thing they could do about it.

The desk sergeant was in no mood to argue. “He’ll have to go straight to Old County. We can’t spare placement in this station. If you can get his prints, fine, but I can’t guarantee a file. A phone call is out of the question.” He turned to glare at the prisoner, his eyes all but bursting in his skull. The pencil gripped between his fists was bent to the breaking point. “You are hereby waiving your rights to counsel, at least temporarily. This city is in a state of martial law. We can guarantee your protection, but that’s about all. If you have family and friends worried about you, well, they’ll just have to sweat it out like the rest of us. You have no identification, and according to these arresting officers are entirely uncooperative.” The room trembled ever so slightly and the pencil snapped. “For now you are going to be held in protective custody, Old County Jail, Downtown. Any cell we can spare. A public defender will be in contact with you at the earliest opportunity.” Another tremor ran through the station. This time the sergeant closed his eyes and controlled his breathing. After a minute he whispered, “I sincerely suggest you be compliant, and take care to not make any enemies.”

The quake first slammed them against the rail, then right up against the independent cells. The escorting officer was sweating heavily as he pulled the prisoner out of reach of scrabbling hands. He hollered back at the angry and frightened men in their orange County jumps, but his every word only served to rile them further. He released a bicep and waved the free hand. The module commander, watching closely, triggered a siren.

The prisoners went nuts. The escorting officer, grimacing, waved the arm again to signal a stop. The siren wound down and the individual voices became evident: pleas for news, pleas for protection, pleas for transfer. The deeper they moved, the deeper became the passion, the anger, the horror-stench of trapped men who know they’re about to die. There came a jolt so fierce it almost knocked the officer off his feet. The prisoners wailed and screamed.

The last available cell was right near the end. Directly across stood a giant of a man; black, broad, and intense, the only caged animal not prepared to howl. He just watched, his eyes glinting and his mouth on the verge of a smile.

The officer waved his arm again. A harsh buzz, and the cell door rumbled open. The officer nudged him inside and waved. The door rumbled shut. “Move your back up against the gate so I can get the cuffs.” The man from Nazareth continued staring at the wall uncertainly. The officer reached in and dragged him back, held him firmly as he worked the key. The prisoner turned.

Sweat was pouring off the officer’s face. “I know you can hear me.” He rolled his eyes. “I know you can hear what’s going on around us. Now I want you to sit on your cot and face the wall. Do not allow the prisoner behind me to provoke you. Sleep, do yoga, meditate: whatever. This will all work out somehow. I…I have a family to find.”

He stumbled back down the walk, and the man from Nazareth found himself eye to eye with the big man across the way.

“Hello, b***h.”

A tremor shook the module and the prisoners cursed, screamed, bashed their cell bars with anything that would rattle nerves. “Seeing as you’re the last person I’m going to see alive,” the black giant continued, “I feel it’s beholden on me to make my confession, if that’s all right with you.” The man from Nazareth stared silently and the big man smiled. “Just what I was hoping for: a good listener.” A crack raced across the wall behind him. “I’ve always been a God-fearing man.” He raised his eyes. “Do you believe in God, b***h?” He wagged his head regretfully. “I thought not. You know, God came to see me, right in this very cell. And do you know what He told me? He told me a snitch would come and test me, and that that snitch would be an agent of the Devil. And He said if I really meant to sit at His Right Hand I had to pass that test. I had to slay that agent.” He spread his hands. “So there it is. Not much of a confession, you say? Well, you’re right. My hands are cleaner than yours.” He vigorously rubbed his palms, meaningfully clenched the fingers. “For now, that is.” A rumble rose from the old building’s bowels. Bits of ceiling rained on them both. “Agent,” he said, “meet agent.”

The man from Nazareth turned and stared at his cell, wondered at the stainless steel toilet and sink, made the mental leap to indoor plumbing. In a heartbeat the module’s east wall had collapsed. Excitement replaced fear in the air. There came the sounds of prisoners from the adjacent module storming the guardhouse, a scream, and one by one the cell doors buzzed open. The man from Nazareth, turning at the sound, found himself staring from one wide-open cell into another.

The big man spread his arms and beamed. “Voila.”

A shotgun blast and emergency siren’s howl. Prisoners came stampeding back into the module, snapping at one another like dogs. “Snitch!” the big man called. “Snitch in the hall!” Within seconds the cell was blocked by furious prisoners. “Save some for me,” the big man said. With howls of excitement the animals in orange jumpsuits came down on the man from Nazareth, beating him with fists and feet, with elbows and knees, with any loose objects they could find. Finally he was dragged to the cell bars and secured at the spread wrists and closed ankles by bloody starched County towels. He sagged there, head fallen and knees crimped. The prisoners filed out and huddled against the rail, grinning and high-fiving. “Leave us,” the big man said quietly. “There is important work to be done.” When the mob had moved away he turned back and lovingly removed from his butt-crack a shiv filed out of a toothbrush. He pressed his big self up against the suspended man, kissed him on the fractured skull and bloody mouth. He dropped back his head. Then, in an act of slow-motion ecstasy, he shoved the shiv between ribs inch by inch, his moans echoing the captive’s. Now the wide black face came in until the lips were just grazing the prisoner’s ear. The voice was low, almost sultry, the breath a hot miasmic pool: “Any last words, snitch?”

The bloody head fell, chin rolling against the chest at an awkward angle. “Eli, Eli,” came the glottal whisper, “lama sabachthani…”

The big man cocked his head quizzically, his expression rolling round to one of pouting indifference. “Cat got your tongue? Aww, that’s too bad.” He snorted to the bowel and hawked one right in the eyes, ran back to the gate and stood there holding it like an eager chauffer. A broad smile cut his face in two. “Don’t wait up for me, b***h. I’m going to Disneyland!”

“This is as far as our instruments will trace in this matter, so many hundreds of years ago. The Cell expired and, in the manner of its species, was gradually replaced through the photosynthesis of proximate starlight. In time earthly affairs returned to normal. Of the man from Nazareth, we can only speculate. All data indicate that the chastised streetwalker was able to discover his whereabouts, and that she, through persistent and selfless entreaty, procured sums sufficient to have the body interred in a tiny mausoleum outside the city. This was a determined woman; obsessive enough to win support by any means necessary, persuasive enough to found him a cult following. This following, eventually numbering in the tens of thousands, was permitted daily services until a freak after-effect of the Cell’s initial paroxysm caused the cemetery’s landfill to shift, resulting in countless sinkholes, collapsed edifices, and sunken statuary. Bodies were exhumed for purposes of relocation, but officials were dismayed to find the man from Nazareth’s coffin vacated, although they found no evidence of tampering. As no body existed for the sake of identification, the empty coffin was allowed to be shipped, at substantial cost to the cult followers, to the man’s native land, where it was ported to the site of an ancient sacred tomb, and there ecstatically received.”

Don’t miss my collection of poems

Out Of The Whirl

available on Amazon at:

Out Of The Whirl: Sanders, Ron: 9798671245547: Amazon.com: Books

My stories collection Wild Stuff is also available on Amazon, at:

Wild Stuff: The Collected Tales Of Ron Sanders - Kindle edition by Sanders, Ron. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

TALK TO ME at: [email protected]

Author's Note

Be sure to check out Faces and The Fartian Chronicles.
Thanks.
Ron.