The Pattern Jumpers.
It was snowing outside.
After checking in, I met her, at the foyer-cum-bar of the Hard Water Hotel.
She pointed out at the blizzard and into the thick of a growing storm. Her finger singled out one particular flake that swirled within the thousands: “I like that one,” she said in a deadpan voice but with a twinkling eye, “that’s my favourite!”
I spluttered. Bubbles of fake beer froth tickled my nose for an instant.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I put the drink down. Fingerprints melted on frosted glass. Rivulets ran stalks down into the paper napkin. Around the stem the sky-blue printed tissue of the petal collar expanded and made the words, ‘Hard Water Hotel’, swell into extra dimensions.
She shifted on the tan plastic barstool and placed one pink elbow on the luminous fossil-encrusted marble. She waved a circular gesture with an invisible wand into the white, salmon and flamingo architecture of the lobby.
“We are all guests. We are all travellers. Choosing when to stay and when to go will be the last great human problem,” she said.
“And who will serve? And who will build? Once all have gone, the scenario is unimaginable,” I replied from a dream thought.
“The consequences are enormous but not everyone can go. It is arguable that there aren’t consequences any longer, as we have known them, for those that will go. In the act of pattern jumping, they become permeable and mutate. They participate in a conmingling singularity.”
“My God, what shall we do? What have we done?”
“We have changed the nature of ‘we’!”
“No, we have realised the nature of ‘we’.
“Things will unfold.”
“One step at a time.”
“Moments in a line.”
“So be it!”
“Here’s to us,” she said and we raised glasses in a toast and laughed for a full ten minutes.
Then, we were quiet for ten minutes more.
“Moments in a line…” I said, musing, “… it is no longer a straight line.”
“But the line is still there somewhere in the pattern, like a simple melody in a symphony.”
“It might be necessary to hold onto that melody. It’s the ball of wool into the labyrinth. It will be a lifeline: a ladder from the deep to the heavens through the cacophony.”
“Polyphony, certainly.”
“The orchestra prepares?”
“Let us go.”
“In?”
“In!”
“One moment, then, I’ll finish my beer.”
When I (re-)read your extract, I had to get in touch. I hope you don't mind or think me over-familiar. It's just that I got excited since some elements of it resonated. Although unfinished, it read like a kind of fairy tale, and like something I have heard before.
ReplyDeleteLet me elaborate. Once upon a time I got myself trapped inside such a tale - I think it was The Three Bears or somesuch. In fact I write to you from there now. Claustrophobia and panic have set in. Several times I have made a beeline for the exit, or 'the end', as some would have it, but to my dismay I have found that it does not exist. I expect I shall calm down and get used to it eventually. Who knows, I may even get to like it, but goodness it's a strange kettle of fish!
Hope to hear more soon about how you get on with the whole knit and caboodle.
Dear Tara,
ReplyDeleteYou might try a figure 8 dance. It always points to the desired outcome.
Why thank you very much for the tip, John. When The Bruins next go out for a drink and I am feeling less vulnerable, I shall try that - at the moment I err on the side of there being a sting in my tale. So mostly I sit here quietly imagining the worst but keeping my own counsel and trying not to cause too much of a fuss.
ReplyDeleteTara
Been away a few days and got back to read this fabulous log excerpt!
ReplyDeleteWhat timely and good advice to Tara, too.
Tara, hope you get out of that particular black hole you're in soon!
Anna