Last night was the last open mic of the year and for some of my friends, the last open mic of the ever (at Morris). I enjoyed most of the acts but it was really great to see my friend, B, get up and read the story through which he had started his Morris open mic career. The story was about the end of the world, or what was to be the end of the world, and I thought it totally fitting for many reasons. Without giving anything away, there are points in the story that touch on the idea of rejuvination and finality and as I watched my best friend up on stage, reading away, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad. Open mic won’t be the same without his quirky and often moving prose, his rosy pink DS, and his pointy feaux-hawk horn. He’s moving onto bigger and better things, finally following what he loves doing, and I’m happy for him. But I’m sad for us.
Dreads and Friends
I’ve got good friends. I don’t just mean cool people to hang out with and make dumb poop jokes with. I mean I have really good friends. People that challenge me, hold me accountable, are exciting and full of life, share my interests, accept me for me and are just plain awesome. Tonight, my two best friends sat and dreaded my hair for around 3 hours total even though I, like a kid with an attention span like a chipmunk, had dreads put in last year and cut them off only a month later. Even though I need dreads put back in because I was too hasty and impatient and distracted, my friends are still incredible enough to take time out of their schedules (busy with papers of the senior sort, papers of the history sort, and general school stress to deal with) to rat my smelly hair. I’ve known for quite awhile that I’m a lucky person for having these people in my life but there are instances that remind me just how lucky I am. For a very long time I didn’t really value friendship much. I sort of saw it as something of a filler to fit nicely in between significant other time but I’ve realized slowly that friends, the good kind, like my friends, are something to be valued and treasured. They are the people that are going to be with you when times suck and you just need to drown your sorrows in a basket of Applebee’s buffalo wings and they are the ones that are going to be sitting with you on a Tuesday night, running a pet comb through your hair in a way that most people would cringe at. I am lucky and I know it. B and K, if you are reading this, I love you both. You’re both good shit.
The start of something great
B, K, and I went into Alexandria yesterday, the idea of a respite, however small, from Morris being the main purpose of our trip. I picked up the combs needed to dread my hair and grabbed a few bandanas to cover up the mid-transition look that I will have between this Tuesday and Wednesday. After filling up on some delicious Chinese grub, we stopped at Menards to look for a plant for K but we found something infinitely better. Hanging amidst the cheap-o sunglasses were several pair of goggles, ranging in color and variety from chrome red with clear glass to jet black with tinted glass. We three Morris travelers all grabbed a pair and I commented, kiddingly at the time, on how we should all make up superhero names to go along with our new face accessories. Well, we did. And we spent the entire car ride back to school going over details on character origins and motivations. We came up with The Archetypes as a name for the group. B has drawn out some basic origin summaries along with pictures here. The following is what I drafted for a complete origin story of my superhero, The Reticent Recluse:
From the notes of Dr. Tarik Mishelo
September 18th, 1989
…and we have no other choice. The situation is quite complex. The war over this snowy mistress that they call Antarctica has gone on for years and still nothing. Not until three days ago.
The only information you need to know is this. The United States has been involved in a war with five of the worlds largest nations (Russia, China, Japan, Great Britain, and Israel) with the sole prize being the barren space of Antarctica. Wars were fought, both on the shores of Antarctica and in home countries. Treaties were signed in pen and broken in blood and still the war raged on. No country would bow out because no country was any better or worse off than any other. Little setbacks occurred but truly, this has nothing to do with where we are right now.
A few days ago, three I believe I said earlier, a large heat spike was detected in the very center of the Antarctic land mass. Along with this heat spike came a signal, sent in Morse Code, spelling out those fabled letters, S.O.S. Of course, our fabulous president of these United States, emboldened by what he though to be a break to his side, sent the mass of our troops storming into the heart of Antarctica. The poor bastard had no idea that the signal was sent to every country involved in the war and the heat spike was obviously detected by everyone else. Did he give us a chance to speak? Did he ask the scientists? To be fair, he would never have asked me, since I work in a division of the government that he never has and never will hear about but still, he didn’t even ask the morons in Physics or the Neanderthals in Communications. No, no, no, our great and wise President sent over 80% of our remaining troops into that frigid tundra, into that cold grave.
They died. All of them. 100% of our troops died and we have no idea how it happened. Who killed them? Not the troops from China or the Israeli troops. Nope, the leaders from every other country walked the same idiotic path our President did and sent huge numbers of troops to the spot, a mirage of victory waiting for them. They all died too. Every man and woman sent into that trap died what we believe to have been an instantaneous death. I must stop now, the satellite-mapping data is coming in and we need to solve this problem immediately. Thank God or whoever is up there that our department even exists.
September 20th, 1989
I haven’t slept. The images are . . . disturbing. Men and women from every corner of the world lying flat on their backs, hands folded on their chests and legs crossed at the ankles. They are arranged in perfect lines radiating out from a single point, the same point our heat spike was detected. From above, they look like a whirlwind, every curved beam curling in toward a single point and here’s the really messed up thing, there’s a kid sitting there. Right in the middle of everything, a damn kid, probably 4 years old, just sitting in the middle of all of these dead bodies. He is the center of the maelstrom. The temperature in that spot is estimated to be ranging from 105 degrees at noon to -85 degrees at night and yet he is only wearing faded red one-piece pajamas. He doesn’t move except to point down each curving radius of dead soldiers. He points once every seven minutes and then waits, perfectly still, until he moves slightly to the right and points down the next column. Whatever is going on down there has the boss freaked the hell out. So we’re sending in The Partial Eclipse.
September 21st, 1989
She brought him back. She just walked through down the columns of bodies, sized the kid up, picked the kid up, and hopped back in the chopper. He’s in the lab right now, we’re running every test we can think of and then some on him but here’s the messed up thing. The kid doesn’t talk. He’s old enough, I’m sure of it, he just doesn’t talk. Not only that, he doesn’t actually make any sounds. He just sits and stares at us with those creepy eyes of his. The general theory going around is that he can’t speak. I don’t know though, the look in his eyes all the time, it’s like he could say something or do something or kill us all, he just doesn’t want to. Oh, this is an interesting little tidbit. When he brought the kid in and sat him down on the lab table for the first time, I noticed that he had something on the bottom of his left foot. The little thing has the number 4 tattooed on the sole of his left foot and who the hell knows what that means? Damn, I need some sleep.
September 24th, 1989
Well, the testing is done and we know nothing. Well, almost nothing. We poked, pinched, needled and cut that kid up for the past three days and still no sound at all, no tears, no struggling, no magic power to kill us all and arrange our bodies into neat shapes. Nope, nothing at all. He just sat there and watched us, no matter what we were doing. We’ve still got nothing on the number 4 bit either. Truth be told, I still get a little uncomfortable around him but the word has come down from on high and the boss says that we are going to keep him. He came down, the boss that is, took one look at the kid, chuckles to himself, and walks back upstairs. A few hours later we found out we’re keeping him. The boss already has some nice quarters set up for the kid with the tag, “The Reticent Recluse” up on the door. At least we got something out of all this Antarctica bullshit.
