eScape to Bastille

Escape to Bastille

Mary called the police department at 7 am. She woke at 5 am with a meat cleaver to her throat. Luckily the meat cleaver was facing the wrong way. When the city cops showed up at 8:15 Mary was not scared anymore, but still anxious about were James had disappeared too. The first male officer walked in the open front door, properly painted pink, because as Mary had to continuously tell her neighbor, A pink front door kept chipmunks from chewing at her foundation. Staring at the front door and her eyes glazing over with thought, Sheryl and Thomas, the local appointed officers waited patiently for Mary to return from her retreat and back to the front room.

Mary was still debating in her mind whether there was a way to paint the grass puce to make the neighbor stay out of her yard when the officer asked politely, “Is there a problem Ma’am?”

Mary pointed at the meat cleaver laying on her large green recliner. She had it specially upholstered for James, because he believed that if you didn’t sit on something Green to relax, your heart rate would slowly accelerate throughout a lifetime until you died a normal death laying on your non - green bedding.

It never made sense to Mary, but the urge to set fire to the chair after James had stormed out that morning had grown so great that the Gas tank for the mower was sitting next to it with the box of matches.

The female officer pointed at the gas can and matches, “What are those for?”

Mary replied without a hesitation, “I was going to burn that rotten bastards chair, but I decided I didn’t want to wreck my house.” She stood up with her water glass and offered them a drink. “Is it illegal to burn it in my back yard?

The officers looked at each other for a slight moment. “No Ma’am, would you like us to carry it out for you?”

Mary smiled, “Yes, put it rate by the rose bush on your way out.”

The officers again looked at each other and nodded. “Ok Ma’am.”

Tyrone walked down the middle of the main street as he had done every day for the past four years. Traffic had learned to avoid him and drive slowly at 3 pm. Tyrone had already picked up his dry bread from the bakery and was sprinkling the crumbs along the double yellow lines. Soon he suspected the birds would understand and thank him.

Passages, like thoughts flowed in time. If one stopped on a path, the path did not stop. The parallel lines of the streets did not stop because he stopped walking. Tyrone did not much care for when the dashes broke apart the beautiful symmetry of the road in twenty inch gaps, but for each small moment the line broke, it appeared again.

He realized too, that the perpendicular lines that traveled down the side streets were just the flow of time trying to make him disembark from his chosen path because he was in fact, destroying the illusion that time was consistent by making his way through it with disregard for it’s plan.

It was like hope, glimmering lights in horrible darkness. They flicker, they dim, but as long as you know that it is possible for them to grow bright, or reappear again, one can believe the darkness didn’t last forever.

Tyrone looked up from the freshly tarred pothole to his left. The sun was too bright today, and he wanted to get out of it before it burned is dark melanin rich skin. He didn’t like to burn, but the sun did it’s work with or without his permission., Tyrone threw the rest of the crumbs down and ran to the end of his road where the large brick monolith shaded the grass of the Mayor’s yard.

He halted to a stop, the path was still there, but symmetry was gone. He looked for the most perfect 45 degree angle to the front door. It would take some time, but it was worth taking the path properly. If the earth is round, why wouldn’t a curved line be the fasted way from point A to B? And if it was a curved line, didn’t the terrain of the ground conform to the gravity ridden spherical core, and make any straight line a person walked into a curved line? And if that was true, then it would still technically be a straight line?

Why don't people get it? There are two lines, running in parallel to
infinity. Who am I to ignore their call to sidle between them for my
journey from my home to work? You can always tell when an Outsider comes through town. They honk their horns and yell at me for doing the perfectly obvious.

. A yellow cab, not accustomed to main street at 3 pm saw Tyrone standing in the middle of the street, in a coma like stillness, and decided to call dispatch.

“Ya Ernie, hey I think there might be a problem here on main street today.”

A crackle and buzz accompanied the answer through the speaker on the dashboard. “Oh…OH… It’s 3 pm isn’t it?”

Memphis Daniels honked as he pulled over to his pick up at the local bar, “What the hell does that mean? There's a guy standing in the middle of the road just staring! He didn't even flinch when I honked.”

The crackle answered. “Yup. It’s Tyrone, the mayor’s janitor, I’ll call and have arrangements made.”

Memphis sighed and set the C.B. back in it’s holster. The cab door opened and a young woman, beautiful and slim climbed in the back seat completely butt naked except for her large fluffy yellow hat. Oh, and she had fuzzy Technicolor slippers on, but Memphis could care less about her feet. He picked the C.B. back up. “Ernie, I might not have the cab back by 4:30, leave the door unlocked would ya?”

Ernie quaked back, “Don’t do it M. She’s gonna leave you tied up this time.”

He giggled like a silly school girl and answered, “I know, it’s exciting.”

For some unfathomable reason and complete lack of imagination, they called the city New Bastille. It's bad enough that at any given moment you're likely as not to encounter somebody literally babbling prime numbers or sweet nothings to long-dead spouses. Couldn't they have come up with something a little more subtle?

In the city park three residents of Bastille regularly danced in the man made pond. It was too shallow to drown in, but at least one person had accomplished it. Somehow the man had decided he was going to breathe his soul up out of the water, and the shame of it all was the 58 year old man had completed the formula for turning electrical energy into matter, and had created a simple experiment out of household items to make the shit ball like matter. Now that he was dead , everyone would just assume it was turds lying around the apartment, and the paperwork would be thrown in a recycling bin where no one would see it for what it truly was.

Formula’s that had come to Professor Trevor after years of working on making a microwave use less electrical energy to support his General Electric Grant, would be mangled up with newspapers and old junk mail while people sifted through it all looking for raunchy porn, and ignoring the most important findings in history.

Thankfully, Ivan worked in the recycling plant, and despite his silent stumbling stagger, was quite aware of what it all meant, and by a random act of air pressure change, spotted the formula’s passing below his hands on the conveyor belt.

Ivan scooped up the papers before they could run down the line out of reach. Tall and abrasive looking no one tried to enforce the scavenging rule on him, and the night of August 25^th Bastille would lose power, and so would most of Ohio, Illinois and Michigan.

Mayor Al had bigger problems then the janitor, or the metamorphosis of static charge to brown droppings of gooey matter. Today was the annual inspection, and he was quite sure the shitheads from the state department would want him to add more residents, but if they wanted the city bigger, they would have to give him something in return.

As he tied his pants on , and strapped up his newly shined shoes. It was time for the state to start supplying Twinkies, and dunkin doughnuts coffee to the stores. He was also hoping for a working and fully stacked Odyssey game system, but solitaire was alright too.

Tanya Monroe had escaped detection in the city for almost it’s entire existence. All she had to do was break things occasionally while singing a goofy song happily and everyone had accepted her.

When she first arrived she had fought to escape, and declared her normality loudly and proudly. Her neighbors hated her for it and the police had put her in jail for it a few times. When Tanya realized that she would be living in a town with total disregard for reality it had terrified her.

Now all she wanted was to never see the outside world again.

As mayor Al pulled up to the house with the most dead grass, he for a slight moment regretted what he had to do.

Tanya heard the Mayors uniquely annoying jabbering approaching her front door.

She decided that she should do something to set his mind at ease.

Mayor Al stepped aside rapidly when the door opened and stuck his foot out to stop the screen door from slamming his perfect face before Tanya screamed into the yard bellowing as she found a small green patch of grass, and by green I mean slightly less brownish yellow then the rest of the grass.

She suddenly went silent, squatted and pissed in the appropriate spot.

“Seriously doll…. I still don’t believe you.” The mayor pointed to his car, the back door opened for their departure.

Tanya grabbed her underwear out of her skirt pocket, and skipped as she sang O’Christmas Tree all the way to the back seat.

Entrance into Bastille was complicated and always, always accompanied by boxes of paperwork. Today accompanied by the Staties, was a particular federal agent who had declared no more paperwork would go through the state department about Bastille or any of it’s citizens. The two slightly less important guys, but higher paid then the fed, were giddy to be rid of it, and the fed was not at all amused by their deliberate joy at handing off the responsibilities.

When the large gate door swung open the fed fallowed the men to a large black bronco, kept in pristine condition for 15 years, parked inside on a seemingly vacant drive.

Agent Lelay rode in the front seat with Al as Tanya waved with one hand, and held the most perfect finger up with the other. The agents walked back out the gate they had entered laughing the entire way to their cruiser.

Agent Lelay glanced at Tanya in the back seat. He assumed Tanya was playing games with her peripheral vision. Her hair seemed to fascinate her as it hid behind her ear and only became visible to her if she swung her head hard enough to flip it into view.

The large dark bearded mayor drove intently, and Lelay pulled a tiny laptop from out of his briefcase. “Mayor, the federal government has decided to add some controls.”

The mayor choked like a big wad of spit had just gotten stuck in his windpipe. He coughed trying to tell the Agent to shut the fuck up, but it came out as “ut is wuck ou”

“The government has already decided, and all you are to do is allow access of our crew to your water treatment.”

The mayor slowed the black bronco and tried to protest, “No, I want twinkies, and I want a lifetime supply of Hen-ti first.”

Al had forgotten about Tanya, and Agent Lelay followed him into the city hall while Tanya waited for them to disappear through the front door. As soon as they were out of sight, she darted out the back door and South down the road to get to Ivan’s house.

Tanya too had been assigned to work in the recycling plant by the doctors. She had learned quickly that Ivan was like her, and not at all what they had labeled him.

Ivan’s house was brick and stucco, he had not chosen to change it at all from it’s original state when he was given the option by the city planning commission. Everyone in town had been given the option, and Tanya, knowing what and who the people really were, told them that she wanted it to be winter all year round, except for summer, spring and fall, so if they could plant pine trees, she would rather have bushes that bloomed flowers.

When they finally got done writing her wishes into their neatly paper clipped and organized manila folder, she was promised everything she had asked for as they left and went to her neighbors house. That woman had all her tree’s removed, and all the spare wood from it piled into the side yard like a giant dry beaver dam. Tanya was tempted on several occasions to set it a blaze, just because she knew the punishment for setting illegal fires was a trip to the local bar for some Haldol soda.

Tanya rang Ivan’s doorbell in a random pat-at-tat-tat rhythm and waited for Ivan to peek through the side window.

His large bulky hands always handled small objects gracefully, but at this occasion he was so excited to show Tanya what he had done that he almost yanked the brass nob off opening the door.

Tanya was hit by a wave of noxious smell as she stepped in. When she put her hand up to her nose Ivan realized what she was doing and rushed her into the dining room so that he could close and lock the door behind her.

He barely contained himself as his big rough voice boomed even as he whispered, “I’ve done it Tanya, the matter conversion really works, and Trevor is going to be…” his face puckered for a second, “He would be so proud.”

Tanya gasped at the large brown ball of goo sitting on the kitchen floor and on the table. She sighed and sat heavily into his over sized recliner. “Oh man, I never thought you were one of them, I never thought,”

Ivan grabbed her chin gently, and with his enormous finger pulled her big hazel eyes up to his, “Just watch Tanya, it’s real!” This time his voice wasn’t booming, and wasn’t loud, it was just.. Soft.

He strode into the kitchen in two big steps and pushed the start button on the microwave. The power in the house surged. Tanya gasped as she watched the static like bolts and sparkles gather on the chandelier between the spouts of darkness. She watched the large hideous ball growing. Ivan had walked back over to her silently, the table started to creak and moan, it’s legs about to snap. “I told you it was real, just because things sound crazy, doesn’t mean that they can’t exist in someone’s world.”

The microwave beeped annoyingly three times and the flickering light show stopped as all the lights grew back to their original brightness.

Tanya stood and grabbed Ivan’s arm viciously, she had gotten lost in his display “They’re here Ivan, I knew they’d screw it up, but they’re here!”

Ivan’s face turned cold and hard. “Where’s Mattie?”

Mattie had worked under Mayor Al as a supervisor for the town since the beginning. She too was only a nut assigned to the town, but found a place running somewhat ordinary tasks and paperwork for the communications with the outside world. She coordinated the trades and shipments as well as utility allocations. It seemed that Mayor Al had grown found of her partial outbursts of profanity and panic attacks. They had started meeting for rum and cokes a couple weeks after they first met, and her attacks had subsided in the confidence that Al did not care if she broke out in sweats in fear of balloons, or if she started paranoid ramblings about the utility companies trying to overload the grids and destroy their city for shear fun.

As a matter of coincidence, after the first rum and coke, he confided that she made him feel normal, and thanked her with a promise that no balloons would ever cross the threshold of seventh street where her office was located. After three years Mayor Al had outlawed all latex or similar types of balloons completely.

This was the first time though that Mattie started to fear he too was one of them. They had met every week, at least once, and he had ditched her for three weeks now. She didn’t want to believe her only companion was deserting her, but now, after ordering her fourth drink, she was sure he too had found her undesirable, and soon the streets would be filled with clowns holding bundles of balloons.

Before Mattie could take the next drink, Ivan and Tanya had approached and called her name from a distance. They respected her, as a matter of knowing sneaking up on her could result in being banned to the celery farm for two days hard labor, but she knew, they too were just pretending. Soon they too would be strapping her to a large leather chair and taunting her for being lazy and stupid.

Ivan looked down at Tanya, “She’s been drinking, maybe we’ll have to leave her out of this.”

Tanya nodded and turned to walk out. Mattie surprised her by shouting happily, “Come her you guys, as much as I hate you, I need more alcohol, come buy me one and talk.”

Mattie guzzled her drink and slammed the plastic goblet on the counter. She believed for the moment if she let them know how much she distrusted them, or feared them, they would do exactly as she feared. This way at least she was in control of what they would do , if only temporarily.

Ivan grinned at Tanya. Each of them had experienced some time on the celery farm, by accident, and were glad that they had caught Mattie on a good day.

Her soft wrinkled hands patted Ivan on the forearm gently pulling him down into the stool next to her. “What are you two up to today?” Tanya paused for a second as Mattie added, “It wouldn’t happen to be anything we could piss the mayor off with would it?” Mattie turned to Ivan, “Cause I’m feeling frisky and you sir can put me to bed any day.”

Tanya stifled a giggle, “Kind of Mattie, that’s why we need to run something by you.”

Mattie pointed to her empty glass and flopped her hand at Tanya to continue.

“We need access to some files the staties brought today, and we aren’t sure what we are looking for yet.”

Ivan put the glass of flavored water into Mattie's hands, It was custom at Bastille bar’s to only serve two actual alcoholic beverages a day per customer, anything else was just flavored with a drop of herbal oil and stale carbonated water. Most people that could tell the difference didn’t drink in the bar anymore, so it was working well for the rest of Bastille.

Mattie shivered as she swallowed most of her drink in one gulp. “just stop by tomorrow after work and I’ll see what we can find.” Ivan and Tanya started to stand up and Mattie grabbed his somewhat furry arm, “One favor.”

Tanya crossed her arms and grinned at the two of them waiting for what came next.

“Anything for you Mattie, “ Ivan tried not to frown, and seem sincere.

“ Take me home and tuck me in?”

As best he could Ivan nodded silently and put Mattie’s arm under his, which from his height was practically around his waist. Tanya walked quietly behind them out the front door. Ivan turned around long enough to mouth the words, “call me” as he turned to listen to Mattie tell him her story about the seven toed cat that mated with a raccoon one time on her farm. Anyone who had a regular conversation with Mattie new how it ended. She told the same story, exactly the same way, every time.

Tanya thought about calling a cab, but decided to walk, she could feel the thunder and electricity building in the sky and thought it might be nice to see the storm start for once, instead of just being swept up in the middle of one.

********************************************************

Mayor Al , in his darkened office on the third floor, whipped the bobble head Lincoln at the open doorway. It cracked and the bearded face sprung off into the hall when it hit. He had done everything he could to protect his town from this, and now the government had stepped in and stripped him of everything he had done.

The Agent made it clear that if he could not comply, a new Mayor would be assigned as well as a new policing force for Bastille. At the moment Al had to resignate his power until a new option could be found. He felt sad that he had just killed Lincoln on the antique burgundy wall paper. It was his favorite desk ornament.

Al mumbled on to himself for most of the night, relying on the magic 8 ball for random guidance on occasion, and sometimes looking up porn to watch while he tried to glue the pieces of Lincoln back together. Before he left for his bed in the next room, he made a note for his secretary to buy him a new bobble head, he had decided that Clinton was a great president after all.

*********************************************************

When Cindy came in that morning and found her note, at the same time, Tanya was knocking on her neighbors door.

The large bag of apples she left on the cement steps would be snapped up quietly when no one could see, as it had been since Tanya had figured out why once a week the police would have to drag the woman out kicking and screaming. Tanya made a deal with them to leave her neighbor alone, and she would make sure she ate, and wasn’t rotting away inside wasting valuable real-estate. If she had time, Tanya decided she would try and leave the woman a dish of roast beef for Sundays dinner.

Cindy on the other hand had decided her boss was an ignorant prick a long time ago, and despite the voices inside telling her to poison his coffee every morning, was more fond of making ridiculous amounts of paperwork for him to go through, and remind him at every occasion of how useless he was in filling the unimportant documents out correctly.

She took pride at shredding the pile of neatly corrected phony papers every night at home, and found it much more rewarding to win that small victory over him then to slowly poison him. Of course the voices had still talked her into at least buying the rat poison and storing it in the break room refrigerator. One day , after all, he might catch on that he really didn’t have to record the destination records of all the taxi rides in duplicate.