Where'd You Park Your Spaceship?, page 12
And they were placed at irregular heights. And they
each had their own set of stairs.
Vo pointed to the one closest to us. Duda, that is your
NEST. Florent that is yours…
She pointed to the next one.
We each have our own NEST? This was obvious, but I said
it anyway.
Yes Heen Vo smiled again. And yours is that one. She
pointed. You all will see that your NEST has everything you
need. You will sleep now. You will know when it is time to
wake up.
Door sound.
She left.
We mumbled good night to each other. We were spent.
What a day.
I climbed the stairs to my NEST.
Amazing how a word can be introduced to you and within
moments you’re using it naturally, like you’ve always used
it. NEST. My nest.
There was a thick jute rug on the floor. A bed against the
wall, with a cover made of something very soft and springy.
There was a door open at one end, to a bathroom. I dropped down on the bed.
And then I saw it.
I saw them.
On Lunlay, in The Thiru, we slept in the ground. My room was dark, and cool. That’s all I’d ever known.
But there, when I lay down, I could see the sky.
The roof of my NEST was clear. Glass. Or something like it.
This was entirely new to me.
I noticed a large switch to my left. I flipped it.
Instantly the glass turned dark.
Ohhhhhh. Nice. They had thought of everything.
I flipped the switch back.
The stars returned.
I looked to my right and laughed. A small closet. In it were nine-I counted them-nine coveralls, each in a different color. I had a hunch.
I checked it.
Yes.
My hunch was correct.
Each coverall had a number on the inside tag.
One for each day of the week.
I checked the tag on the coveralls I was wearing.
Number one.
There were drawers below. One had boxers, one had shirts,
one had socks. All in my size.
Like they knew I was coming.
*
I have only ever heard my dad tell one joke. Someone told him that someone in CIRCLE 6 had a wife who hit her head. We were doing what we always did on these excursions: trying to find help. It took half a day of walking to get there. I sat in the front garden while my dad went in and asked his usual questions. He had a notebook he carried with him everywhere he went.
Sometimes he would sit in our garden and hold it against
his heart. For hours.
That notebook was his love for her in paper form. But
sometimes it struck me as just, well, kind of pathetic.
A reminder of his failure to make peace with what is.
Eventually he came out of that house, like he always did.
Only this time he was laughing. And the man he was visiting
was laughing as well.
My dad never laughed.
They shook hands, him and the man.
And then my dad said Want to hear a joke, before I go?
My dad knows a joke?
Sure! the man said.
All right, here we go, said my dad.
He never talked like that.
These two guys meet up at a bar on Hackle.
Hackle? My dad opened his joke in a bar in Hackle? Hackle
was the most well known planet on the outer, outer edges
of the 9’s, which were the outer, outer edges of…
everything. What does my dad know about Hackle?
One of them is wearing a bright green coat. Just the
brightest, greenest coat you have ever seen. They have a
drink, they go their separate ways.
My dad paused.
Please tell me there’s more. Because that is not a joke
right there.
The man on the porch was listening intently.
I realize now that my dad was savoring the moment. I
missed that at the time. My dad didn’t savor much of
anything.
He kept going. One day 30 LAPS LATER these two men both happen to be passing through Hackle. They see each other in that bar and they remember meeting all those years ago. The first guy says HEY, DIDN’T WE MEET ABOUT 30 LAPS AGO RIGHT HERE IN THIS BAR? The other says YES! WE DID! I REMEMBER YOU! The first guy says I REMEMBER YOU WERE WEARING THE BRIGHTEST, GREENEST COAT THAT DAY! And the other guy says OH YES I WAS! AND DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I WAS WEARING THAT COAT THAT DAY? And the first guy says YES-I’D LOVE TO KNOW! And the other guy says I WORE THAT COAT THAT DAY SO THAT WE COULD TALK ABOUT IT NOW!!!
My dad delivered that last line with a bang.
He stomped his foot on that man’s porch.
He clapped his hands.
He and that man laughed so hard.
That man thought that joke my dad just told was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. I can only assume he had not heard that many jokes. I sat there on that porch trying to work out why they found that joke funny.
My dad stood there on that porch glowing. Like he’d been
carrying around a large piece of gold and he finally got to
take it out of his bag and show it to someone. He glanced
over at me sitting there on that porch, a look of triumph on
his face.
*
I heard horse music. At least that’s what I think it’s called.
Ancient music, earth music, I’ve heard it called string music.
Wood music. Apparently the bow that moves across the strings of those kind of instruments is made from the tail of a horse.
Horse music.
I woke up. In my NEST. The sky above me was blue. I have
never woken up to the sky. I was in the exact position I was in when I first laid down on my bed.
Still in the coveralls from the day before.
The music was wonderful. So relaxing.
I spotted the speaker in the far corner of the ceiling. There was a small table next to my bed. On it was a large glass filled with a thick, green liquid. I tasted it. It was delicious.
What a drink.
Wait. Someone came in while I was sleeping?
I cleaned up. I checked the coveralls in the closet, choosing the one for today.
I was pretty sure it was as obvious as that.
Two.
They were blue.
Two is blue.
Excellent.
I left my NEST.
Duda was waiting on the ground, which I was assuming was called the FIELD. A few others were coming down their
stairs. All wearing blue coveralls. Interesting how we all
sorted that one out.
I felt a tremendous bond with those people. I did not
understand how I could feel so close to people I had known
for barely a day. There was something about the intensity and newness of the experience we were having together that connected me to them far more than people I had spent my entire life with. I noted this.
Vo appeared.
She was wearing silver that day. A long, flowing silver blanket with arm holes. That she could walk in. With an orange stripe across the front.
Zoma said to her Vo I love what you’re wearing. After two
days I’m beginning to think that you can pull anything off.
You are entirely correct Zoma Vo replied. And the same is
true for you: We can pull off whatever we believe we can
pull off.
You believe that? Florent laughed as he asked.
Vo was resolute. Absolutely. Anybody can wear anything. You think that what you wear is about the outside. But that is merely the outer and last layer of the expression-
The outer and last layer of the expression. That’s what Vo
called clothing-
What you wear begins with how you see yourself. If you
decide that you can wear whatever you want to wear then
you can wear whatever you want to wear.
I was beginning to wonder if Vo was the most unusual person I had ever met. It was the way she carried herself, a flow inherent in her presence. Powerful. But restrained.
Understated. Subtle. Like what she said there about
clothes. That is profound that bit about pulling off
whatever you believe you can pull off. But the way she
said it, like it was just a toss off comment, a stray thought
she pulled out of the air on the way to saying something
else. That sense of ease and command, together.
Effortless.
By then we were all together in the FIELD.
Stilitz jumped off his stairs. Vo is this called the FIELD? Because it feels like a FIELD!!!
Vo smiled. It is now.
We did this thing with tennis balls. There were lines on the floor, dividing the floor up into spaces that had numbers written in them, which corresponded to points you got for getting the balls into those spaces. There were cups used to move the balls. And we could only stand in certain spaces. And there were these three sticks that had velcro on the end so you could move a ball without using a cup or standing in that space. Because the number on the space was added to the number on the ball and then divided by the number of people in that space.
It was really complicated.
We had to move from space to space, pairing up with different partners-we were each given a number based on the order we were picked up yesterday-WAS THAT YESTERDAY???!!!-Trying to keep our running score above
a certain number which flashed on the wall and below
another number which flashed on a different part of the wall.
And changed. Constantly. And then changed faster and faster the better we got at the game.
My brain was so cooked after that one.
We stumbled out of that TUBE and stood there in the sun, dazed.
So did we win?
Corta wanted to know.
Florent was so confused. I’m still not sure what the game even was.
I agreed. The number in the space was divided by the sum
of the other numbers-not subtracted, right?
Which led to a discussion about what the correct answer
was to that question. Turns out we were split right down the
middle about one of the most important rules of the game.
Literally half of us were trying to do one thing while the
other half were trying to do something else.
Vo then took us to a spot on the opposite side of the
circle with six padded reclining chairs.
Arranged in a circle, of course.
We sat back in the chairs.
Music began to play from speakers IN THE CHAIRS.
Not just IN THE CHAIRS, the chairs were somehow
connected to the music. The low notes rumbled in the
cushion, the higher notes sent vibrations though the
fabric.
I got totally lost in it.
Just swept away.
I see now what they were doing.
Although I don’t know exactly who I mean by THEY.
Somewhere in that second day I stopped wondering what
the point of all of it was. At first, of course, I was trying to
figure it out. We all were. What are they doing with us?
What is the point of this challenge? What are they testing
in this game? What are they looking for in this exercise?
How am I doing? Am I measuring up? Am I good enough?
Where is this headed?
But gradually I stopped caring. It was just too much. The
relentless onslaught of new sensations and foods and
TUBES and colors and events and stimulation-it just kept
coming. Vo would show up, we would go to a new TUBE, do whatever we did there, and then we were on to the next one…
Like those chairs.
Listening to that music.
I didn’t know what that was-the point. The purpose. The
plan.
But that one with tennis balls and numbers was so
intense. It was like physical math.
So to just recline there with that chair giving me that odd
sort of music massage?
Fine.
And then it was time for lunch, in another TUBE.
Which was yellow on the inside.
And had black balls hanging from the ceiling.
That swayed in the breeze.
Were they making a breeze? Indoors?
The table we ate at was shaped like a triangle. Our seats were bolted to a large triangular shaped plate that rested on the floor.
At least, that’s how it appeared at first.
But then as we ate the whole thing-the table and us
sitting in our chairs-rotated.
Very slowly.
Which changed our perspective on the black balls swaying
above our heads because there was some sort of
backlighting that created shadows of the balls on the
yellow walls.
Shifting shadows. Constantly overlapping, producing an
endless succession of shapes and designs. The more we ate the less we talked because what was happening on the
walls was just so compelling.
Stilitz pointed at the wall at one point and said That looks like a pregnant elephant-never mind, now it’s gone.
Duda shouted with joy. I just saw a fat kid pop a bubble!
It’s kind of mesmerizing Corta murmured, softly.
Zoma smiled as she said It’s like a tired volcano that is
just so weary from all those years of going off…
A memory floated back to me, sitting there in that TUBE, watching those shapes on the wall. I must have been 4 or 5, young enough to rest my head on my mother's lap after running for hours in the meadow near our house. She pointed to a cloud and said Look, a monster eating a sandwich! I thought that was the funniest thing ever. My dad joined me, his head leaning against her thigh. And there’s a strawberry landing on a giant's head! What do you see Heen?
I studied those clouds.
Waiting for my moment.
Someone dropped their ice cream!
We all thought that was hilarious.
My mother and dad and me.
Together.
Seeing things in those clouds.
The more the 6 of us sat at that rotating triangular table
eating our lunch the trippier our sightings got. I don’t
know if it was the food or someone put something in our
drinks or they were adjusting the lighting in that TUBE-I
wouldn’t put it past them-but it became a game of who
could top who.
At one point I shouted There’s one of Florent’s pears!
Duda punched the air. And it’s exploding in his face!
That sort of thing.
On and on we went
Until that door sound.
And Vo appeared.
And announced that we were now going to TUBE 2.
Where the whole thing took a turn.
*
TUBE 2.
We stepped through the doorway and into a white circle. The walls were white. The ceiling was white. Six circular white rugs were arranged in a circle.
In the center of each rug was a guitar on a stand.
Each guitar was a different color. With a matching strap.
Six of them. The guitars were on stands, in front of amplifiers. On the floor in front of the amplifiers was a series of boxes with dials and knobs on them.
I’d never played a guitar.
I’d seen them played.
But music just wasn’t in my house.
Or my bones.
All of it was very unfamiliar to me.
Vo told us to pick a guitar and put it on.
I laughed out loud at that one.
Me? I thought to myself.
Yes, you Heen Vo said.
It was like she was inside my head. But then again, I kept
reminding myself, she’d probably done this hundreds of
times…
You will notice headphones on top of your amplifier. Go
ahead and put them on.
We did.
You will see next to the headphones a guitar pick. You will
strike the strings with the pick. Take a moment to practice.
I touched a string with the pick.
WOW. What a sound.
I struck all the strings.
It actually sounded good.
Like a note. Notes. A chord.
How is this possible?
Vo continued. Your guitars are tuned to what is called an OPEN TUNING. This means that you cannot hit a wrong note. Holding the pick in your right hand, take the index finger of your left hand and hold it down in between the silver bars that run up and down the neck of the guitar.
Is the neck the long part?
Yes, Stilitz, you are correct.
I tried it. It sounded like music.
Vo went on. As you slide your finger up to the next space
between the bars-which are called frets-you will see that it
sounds-
Great! Zoma yelled with her headphones on.
Yes, it does, Zoma.
Vo was so patient.
Now, I draw your attention to the boxes at your feet. These are called PEDALS. Pick any one of them and click the button with your foot. Then play the strings.
I picked the pink box.
I hit the strings.
They rang and rang and rang. Like an endless echo. It
sent chills up my spine. I did it again. And again. I slid
my finger up a fret. Then another. The ringing was ethereal,
haunting, magnificent.
Vo kept going. Now try another pedal. Turn the first one
off. Then try them both, together.
I did. Suddenly the strings sounded underwater. I tried another one. It sounded like I was playing in a massive cavern.
I tried another. It sounded…dry. Is that the word for it? Dry?
Close? Flat? Thin?
