Slum Enterprise - Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

“Lovely view,” Tim said. 

Lee jolted so hard that he jumped from the pew. Lee swam back up from the thought experiment in his mind to meet Tim at the surface again. Lee didn't know this but the sun stopped moving, time froze but it didn't affect Tim or himself. 

Clouds began to gather around the Reserve. It was like the eye of a hurricane was right on top of them. Tall bland grey buildings that looked like deep interior Russian apartments started to rise on the rim of the Reserve and meet the wall of clouds above. 

Smog and smoke began to fill the air, it smelt like methane and garbage juices that dripped from the back of garbage trucks. There was a protective dome around the Reserve and lake. An invincible force field blocked the swirling clouds and buildings from breaking in and ruining the pristine land. The sight intimidated Lee, the crude capitalist garbage was right at the door step.

“Dont worry about all that, You'll face it again soon enough.” Tim said in a calming voice.

“I don't understand,” said Lee. He was out of his wits since his intense vision of the orbits.

The smog and clouds mixed and created a green tint in the sky like the sky before a tornado is about to strike nearby. Then, giant brick-laid smoke stacks rose behind the wall of apartment buildings. The stacks billowed out pollutants into the sky, yet the force field was protecting the two of them on the pews. Lee didn't see the settlement anymore, only the matted grounds and a few articles of trash left behind.

The swirling smog began to cover the blue atmosphere above the lake and Reserve. Over the horizon more buildings began to rise from the earth. Lower beneath the walls of gothic apartments small little neighborhoods that looked mass manufactured with low quality building materials peppered the base. Everything looked corporate and dull. 

The smog began to funnel over the lake island. A funnel cloud of dirty air began to protrude down to the entrance of the well. It stretched and grew in strength until the tip of the funnel met with the well. The Oak tree was almost at horizontal bend due to the wind shear.

 The tornado now broke the surface plane of the black pool below, it poured itself deep. Lee looked off in astonishment, he didn't really know what was happening, he had 0 control, he was starting to become manic with anxiety, everything felt like it was being violated by unwanted advances. It felt like the funnel cloud was going to expand and explode its toxins. The protective dome was now broken, there was nothing Lee and Tim could do to stop it.

“Lee, look at me.” Tim said, the swirling cloud was deafening with turbulent air friction. “You understand what this is?” Tim jumped over from the easterward pew and grabbed Lee by the arms and held him down so he didn't fly away.

“Tim…Tim I don't know…I…I was just having this vision or… this dream. I saw the settlers and Jenna floating in orbital patterns around that Island, over there.” Lee pointed, his arms were tense and Tim saw his veins pop against the force of his grasp.

Lee turned back and grabbed Tim's shoulders, it looked like they were about to conduct an impressive figure skater move by setting up the hands position before the launch off the ice. Lee felt weak now, his hands and feet were shaking and tingling with pine needles. His jaw began to lock up and his voice now sounded sluggish. Lee stared and Tim's wrinkled face, he had calm brown eyes. Lee knew that Tim had something of grave importance to tell him, or maybe that was just the buildup of chaotic events around him that made him feel that way.

“Dont worry about any of this, this all happens for a reason. Don't you know? You know what this place is.” Tim yelled. Lee didn't say a word. Tim commanded Lee to fully understand.

“You didn't think your soul was new? Right? This isn't your first pass.” The tingling in Lee's hand increased in amplitude, he could see his hand curl and lock in place on Tim’s shoulder with tunnel vision. Lee couldn't talk at all now, panic engulfed him, Lee forced out, “Tell ME.”

“That vision of the orbits, the oak tree in the center with the deep well down yonder, the triangles and curricular outline you drew back in your basement notebook, your mind transported you here, to my reality, my dimension. You did it Lee, you found the self, the resting place of all the other souls in you. Pieces of the past, all fragmented but still living well in your Reserve.” Tim said with intense eyes, Lee shook his head back and forth like he was trying to shake water from his hair like his dog Penny after a bath.

“I am you, and you are me, you created this reality to take one look, to break from the chains of reality for just a moment just to have this one peak, something you've been pushing off for awhile now, something you told yourself we didn't want to see or understand. This is what makes Lee Collins, Lee Collins." Tim had to hold Lee with force down on the pew he was shaking so bad. The air velocity didn't seem to affect Tim. The temperature had dropped significantly from the smog stamping out the sun.

“The others in the tent settlement were your other soul fragments, you have kept the ones you wanted on the outside and the bad ones hidden deep in the well abyss. That singularity on the Island is the entirety of you. Fragment soul like pieces of meteorite, orbit around the intense mass that is your singularity. Can't you see Lee, every soul is like this, granted all different locations and settings but nonetheless, the same principles and model applies to human consciousness. Some people have let the bad fragment crawl from their black pools and kill the good ones and vice versa, people of all shapes and sizes thinking different thoughts and ideas all influenced by their own singularity that came from the collective entropy mesh you living folks call void. It's the waiting room before a stream of quantumized material deviates from the entropy mesh and forms a small dot just above the mesh surface, all for it to come back down again and rest awhile, only until it finds enough time, energy and space to do it over again. But, soon everything will fall back and collapse on itself only to repeat the massive cosmic cycle again in some unfathomable amount of time.”

“Just look around, you see those buildings over there? The brick smoke stacks, the inspection failing homes leaning to one side due to structural faults. It's pumping out garbage and toxic waste into your Reserve, they try to suffocate the true you and take it over only for their gain. You can't let them break in and destroy your only refuge from the outside world. Look Lee, you've had the privilege to see this, look at the funnel cloud pouring green toxins into your singularity. This is a warning, the outside world has begun to break you down, Lee you can't let them.”

“You're shaking your head violently Lee, I can't tell if you understand or not. I'll talk as long as I can, before this reality breaks down and shoots you back out. You face uncontrollable forces unchecked by the laws of the universe, it pummels your senses with unwanted wave frequencies that filter down to your singularity where it's absorbed and stored back in the mesh. In return, your singularity throws energy and wave frequencies right back out to the outside world which are filtered and skewed by the external orbits. The internal and external self are in constant battle and understanding of one another. A battle of survival. In the outer orbits where you saw the settlers build canoes, this is you that faces the outside world, this is your front line. You have to face life problems, shitty people, your job, all the horrors and tragedies. This is impossible for anyone to stay in the outer orbits for very long, the goldilocks zone is the inner orbits near the well pool abyss that is the subconsciousness entrance. In these lower orbits, you start to peel the mask off and become a version more aligned of your true self. Friends and family, true dislikes and special interests take a more forward approach in your day to day life. You can never touch your singularity, but you can become friendly with it. Be as close as you can. Only in dreams will you ever take information out from the subconsciousness, this is the sense data that you missed while being conscious.”

“Stop…Stop I can't go on like this, I must be dreaming, a nightmare, if this is me, how can I see myself, it's like trying to look at your own face but your eyes are locked into your skull sockets. Why? Tim helped me understand.” Lee yelled with forced jaw movements. 

Thunder and lightning shook the earth and lit up the greenish smog into bright neon. The funnel cloud was now ripping its way into the well pool without remorse.

Tim flung off his pack he was still carrying and pulled out a coarse rope, he swung it around Lee's body and legs and tied him to the wooden pew. “That outa hold ya.” Tim said. The wind was becoming fierce and trees began to fall in the forests and fly towards the funnel.

“You don't need to understand, it's already in you, you can feel it, forever until this soul ends and its journey and all of experiences collapse in on itself down into that dark pool over there.” Tim yelled again, his eyes were furious with extreme excitement.

“You mean I'm going there at the end?” Lee responded.

“We all are, all the soul fragments back into the entropies of void mesh, laid out like fresh sheets when your mom made your bed. We will shrink into one another, we are something now, then to nothing again, really our natural state is nothing at all. But the catch is, since we are something now, there is a chance we can become something again, the laws of nature demands it, we just have to want it badly, we have to make the decision to start again. Then…then…then BOOM, BOMB VOI AG. Another bullet of bits and pieces fly from the mesh and ripple the time fabric and we start this funny little cycle again. Only now, instead of you meeting me, someone else will be meeting us here together, but only if they take the time to look inward and figure themselves out.” Tim stood up and began to hover a few inches off the ground. Lee saw that he was rising like the second coming of Christ.

“What the hell are you doing? How are you doing that? It's like a goddamn tropical hurricane in here.” Lee yelled.

“Whata mean? It's my exit music.”

The 5 band of musicians came soaring down from the smog filled clouds playing a fast jazz tune. Tim was waiting for this moment, he bent his legs and did a fake jump while floating and began to fly faster towards the band that was passing by in a hurry.

“Tim dont leave, how do I get back, where is my home, please don't let the smog take me, I don't want to suffocate.” Lee cried. He was wiggling in the tightly tied rope.

“That choice is yours, Lee Collins, will you take the risk and escape from the slum that invades you?”

Tim floated higher and joined the band as they flew past. He grabbed his G major harmonica from his pants pocket. Lee heard him say “Let's hit it.”

“Tim, TIM,” Lee yelled a final time. He watches them orbit the funnel cloud closer and closer to the entrance of the stone well. Then, with a bright flash and final ending chord (it sounded like a Gmaj7 or a G6)they disappeared into the abyss below. Still Tim, the Jazz harmonica player who couldn't whistle had found his band and would play for the folks back home, Lee was left only with a crumbling world.

He broke free from the rope and dove under the pew and grabbed onto the legs that must have been buried deep, he hung on for dear life. The smog twister was at its climax. 

Pretty much everything on the Reserve was getting sucked into the well. The sky line buildings and structures got taller and taller, the houses more dense. Then, Lee's body was picked up from the extreme force of the wind. His legs lifted and dangled in the direction of the singularity. His strength began to fail him. His fingers could barely hold onto the pew leg. Lee could only think of Annie, Penny, his friends and family, life was flashing from conception to this currently unworldly predicament. Lee's grip failed and he was flung violently towards the funnel cloud. He failed around like a bug tipped upside down on his round back. 

Around and around the funnel cloud, closer and closer to the dark pool. He broke the surface and awoke back on the Nature Reserve trail.