Continuum Six

State of the Blog

Lately, you’ll see, my posts have all been Instagram photos or short stories, and I kind of like that. I’m a huge fan of the “renaissance man” ideal of a well rounded person — a scholar, artist, athlete, etc. — and Continuum Six has come to represent the artistic side of my person (or at least of my online identity). I want to broadcast fair warning: more of the same is on the way! This spring I’m planning to take both art and poetry (as well as networking, one of the most intense CS classes at Brown), so I’ll be posting lots more of my creative work here. I’ll also be continuing to post short stories; mostly revised versions of those I wrote for my fiction class last semester and haven’t yet published here, and possibly new stories, should I have the time to write them. And, naturally, more Instagram pics.

I’m also working on lots of computer sciency stuff as well (and as usual), though these things usually end up on mattnichols.net and/or my GitHub.

The Fazoli

Louis Courtemanche combed his mustache slowly, massaging out snarls and flecks of dinner which had stood the test of the evening. His feet rested in a bath of hot water, shedding dead skin and the various tensions of his day, and a warm towel lay across his bare lap. Frank, his German Shepard, sighed in contentment, his belly full of leftover lamb steak and half a watercress sandwich, and began to doze off. The sun had finished its lazy traversal past the western window of his penthouse, and the city outside seemed to be preparing for sleep. And then, despite the tranquility and calm which in most circumstances would ward off such a disastrous occurrence, a piano fell through the ceiling.

The piano landed squarely on the television set, which let out a loud and disgruntled BANG as its vacuum tube imploded. Frank, wrested from peaceful dreams of three-legged cats, leapt to his feet and woofed loudly. Louis grunted in surprise, and stood. Plaster dust floated through the air.

Louis stepped from the bath and dried his feet. Wrapping the towel around his waist, he ambled over to the piano. He could see stars through the hole in his ceiling. Lifting the lid and brushing chalky debris from the keys, he began to play: Bach’s Minuet in G Major.

“Stop that.”

He stopped.

“Someone happens to drop their piano in your living room, you can’t just up and play it! Who do you think you are? This is a vintage Fazoli.” A small man in a plaid suit was climbing down from the ceiling. “Name’s Dart Macon, nice to meet you. Seems to have survived the drop… now how am I gonna get this out of here?”

At a loss for words, Louis turned and shuffled to the kitchen to make tea. When he returned a few minutes later, carrying a pot of steaming Lapsang Souchong, Dart was tapping at the southern wall of the living room. 

“Studs here and… here… if we cut strategically, then… say, chap, you wouldn’t happen to have a circular saw and a sledge hammer, would you?”

Louis poured a shallow dish of tea for Frank, who had lost interest in Dart and his piano but perked up at the smell of his favorite brew. “No, but there’s tea.”

Dart grunted in approval, still examining the wall. Louis prepared cups of tea for them both, and then returned to his chair and foot-bath. “We could just call a piano mover.”

“Hmph. Don’t trust ‘em. I’ve heard terrible stories. Snapped strings. Scratched woodwork. Broken legs. No, best to do this kind of thing yourself.”

Louis quizzically noted the scratched woodwork and broken legs of the Fazoli, and sighed in acquiescence. Dart seemed to be a man not terribly concerned by the particularities of fact. 

The piano-shaped hole in the ceiling flashed white for a moment, followed closely by a crack of thunder. Louis again drew his feet from the bath, dried them, and walked to his coatroom. He returned wearing a poncho and carrying two umbrellas, one of which he handed to Dart. “It’s supposed to rain.”

“Oh no,” exclaimed the other. “Oh no, oh no. We can’t have that. More than a little water and this finish is ruined! I’ll have to… you know what… he owes me a favor anyway.”

Dart unsheathed an ancient mobile phone from its leather holster on his belt, and punched in a number he clearly knew by heart. “Chad. Yeah it’s me, Dart. Say, you remember that time I rescued your cat? Yeah, well I’m in a bit of a pickle. You know my Fazoli? No, the baby grand. Yeah, that’s the one. Anyway, I’ve gone and dropped it in some poor bloke’s apartment, and I need a hand lifting it out. I know you mostly do tourist stuff, but you did the elephant that one time… we could probably make the same harness work, yeah. I’m at the corner of Third and Main, the one with the hole in the roof. You can’t miss it. Alright, great - and hurry up, will you? I think it’s about to rain.”

He snapped the phone shut and, as if on queue, the rain began. It was soft at first, barely misting the cover of the piano, but slowly increasing in force until puddles began to form in the carpet. 

And then, like the roar of some vindictive demon in the night, a furious chopping sound became audible over the falling rain. It became louder and louder until a harness fell through the ceiling, lowered slowly by the churning airborne machine which now hovered over Louis’ flat. Dart leapt into action, tossing the umbrella aside to fasten the harness around his piano. When he had finished securing the straps, he squinted up into the storm and gave the pilot a thumbs up, and the piano slowly began to lift from the room.

Dart, now soaked, turned to Louis and grinned. “Well that’s that. Thanks for your hospitality chap, I do appreciate it. Do you mind showing me the door?”

Louis obligingly saw him to the exit. When they reached the door, Dart offered him a business card. “In case you need help fixing up that ceiling.”

As the door closed and the sound of the helicopter faded into the distance, calm once again settled over the flat. Louis placed Dart’s card on the kitchen counter for later reference, and retired to his bedroom. Frank was already dozing at the foot of the bed, but woke to wag his tail in greeting as Louis climbed beneath the covers. The cool evening breeze and the sound of raindrops carried them both into a sound sleep.

Endings

The brushed steel of Tom’s fixed gear was no match for the unforgiving face of the city bus. Hissing and screeching, the vehicle strained at its brakes, but it was too late. Tom’s groceries, which had hung from his handlebars, erupted into colorful fireworks, and his bicycle, no longer supporting his weight, conformed neatly to the bumper of the bus. His body soared forward, away from the shocked driver of the now rapidly decelerating bus, and towards a crowd of pedestrians, who watched in horror. As Tom crumpled into the pavement, his eyes blinked open for one last glimpse of his world.

1. Consciousness

In an overwhelming rush of sensation, Tom felt. He felt the dreadful awe of the accident’s onlookers, the sickening adrenaline rush of the young woman who fumbled through her purse, found her cell, dialed 9-1-1. He felt the dispatchers resigned sorrow and the paramedics’ collected urgency. He felt his mother’s disbelief and anguish as she received the call, learning that, no, they had not been able to revive his lifeless body and yes, they had already called his father. His girlfriend’s tears streamed from her golden-brown eyes, and Tom felt these too, tasting their salt.

As night fell, he felt the wind brush the trees, moving their limbs in a slow and sensuous dance. Half-way around the earth, the rising sun bathed an ancient temple in golden light, and Tom felt the warmth of the stone. Many oceans washed upon many shores, and he felt their caress.

Tom felt, for the first time, the vastness of the universe.

2. Imagination

The hills were purple, with yellow polka-dots. Tom flew above them, held aloft by wings made of bedsheets. Below him, prehistoric creatures grazed on patches of orange grass, and three suns warmed his skin. No, he thought, this is too warm, three suns is too many. The largest accelerated its descent, and dropped obligingly behind the distant horizon.

Tom landed softly at the crest of a particularly colorful hill, and wished for some company. A trapdoor to his left fell away, and two large antelope clambered out. He greeted them, and they lifted their front legs, shook off their antlers, and were now his college friends from years ago. A pool table materialized, and the three played game after game until both remaining suns had set.

He floated through the night sky, adding a star here and there to complete his favorite constellations. This was an easy existence, with no concerns except for the loneliness which grew more acute every day. Should he attempt to reconstruct the life he barely remembered? He had plenty of time to decide.

3. Thoughts

All at once,  Tom was bicycling (as he had told his girlfriend), grocery shopping (as he had told his mother), and reading the Wealth of Nations (as his grandfather imagined). He was awakening from a coma and shaking his doctor’s hand, as the bus driver dearly hoped, and preparing a lawsuit, as the city’s lawyers feared. He did each of these things simultaneously, unaware of the others, and often transitioned quickly between one thing and another, or found himself doing nothing at all. 

As the various consciousnesses which maintained his identity learned of his physical death, his day-to-day activities lessened in variety, and became almost entirely things he had done before. He often brought his mother a bouquet of twelve sunflowers, made animal-shaped pancakes with his father, and returned from a three-day fishing trip with his uncles bearing the single product of his angling. Sometimes he found himself in an idealized heaven, playing tennis with his mother’s parents, or speaking politely with a bearded man in a white robe. 

As the years went on, he found himself doing less. It was often many days between events of consequence, days consumed entirely by empty darkness. Eighty-two years after the incident with the bicycle — he barely knew what exactly had happened — he gave the child with the tousled blond hair the last model train, and faded away. 

4. Nothingness