Feet 6

We got out of the big warehouse, the weather was fogged with dust, I couldn’t see, Hemix passed me a pair of goggles “For your weak human eyes, sir.” He shouted among the loud sounds of the storm. I nodded in thanks, unable to open my mouth, because if I do, my mouth will be desert and my body becomes drought, I covered my mouth with my shirt to breath. The warehouse behind us started crumbling into rubble in an instant, it’s like the dust was the support of the whole structure, and it got all blown away with the dust storm, which I realized wasn’t the “normal” dust storm, as in wind blowing in a certain X direction on your face or your back, the dust was rising from the ground, no tornado, as if the whole earth is rising bits by bits, starting with dust and now rocks.

My body was slightly rising up from the strength of the earth’s wind, but Hemix’s weight kept him on the ground, so he held my arm and dragged me slowly with him, while my naked parts of the body was getting scratched and bloodied. I thought there was no escape from the earth’s wind, I thought my lungs would drown with dust and sand. Hemix was trying to go somewhere specific, I could tell from his movement, it looked to me that he have already experienced such wind, and have found a place to hide, which meant the earth’s wind will stop at some point, very soon maybe, I hoped. My naked body was badly molested, I started getting droopy and tired, losing the will to live.

My mind drifted away slowly, and started to enter another dimension, or maybe it was a past, or future. I started seeing buildings and parks, sunshine and skies, I couldn’t understand if it was what I hope for, or what I had before. They were beautiful buildings built high to the sky, creating artistic shapes that points to the sky, like swirls from a roller-costar ride combined with a dark steel-like blunt structures. The parks were dark in green and flourishy in appearance, with very old trees that had millions of branches entangling each other and creating a natural cover for the people that would walk around it, but there was no one around. It seemed like a beautiful, but dark place. It seemed familiar somehow, and strangely attractive to my eyes in it’s chaotic dark beauty.

Suddenly I saw things falling from the sky, little squares, they looked from far away, appearing from nowhere that my eyes can reach. I started breathing hard for reasons I didn’t understand, and my vision started to come back to the Hemix’s head bouncing up and down, trying to stay grounded or the earth’s wind would carry him to the skies and space. My body started lowering to the ground in a slow pace, the wind was getting less and less intense, the earth’s breath stopped. The dust-fog was still there, everything seemed still, and the world was quiet.

“Ah! We sure are lucky this time, sir.” Hemix voice echoed in the silence, “We were far away from the underground shelter, and if it had gone for as long as last time, we would have made it, sir.” I couldn’t speak or open my eyes, I just nodded in blackness, trying to wipe the dust away from my vision. Impossible.

I heard a thumb of an object striking steel, and then steel striking ground, I turned my head towards Hemix’s previous voice, trying to understand the sound, unable to speak my question of “What is going on?” But soon I realized, the sky was raining rocks that was raised by the earth’s breath and now returning to their place.

I heard more and more, louder and louder sounds of rocks hitting the ground, and without any warning, I felt a pain in my head, and another one, that faded instantly with my consciousness.

Legs 5

I exhaled my breath with an intense sound, kind of like someone punching you in the stomach, and you never saw it coming, surely the pain does feel the same too.

“Hell! I am sick of fainting!” I shouted after taking 3 deeps breaths while holding my chest, like I am tyring to stop my organs from spilling out. “You haven’t eaten for a while, sir. You humans have to eat three times a day to have enough energy to function, and that’s even when you don’t do any labour, sir.” Hemix said while he was collecting food from an almost unsalvageable-looking super-market. “I think I would know my body more than you, thank you.” I complained to the mechanical man, “No sir, my database carries much information that you’ll never be able to completely study, even if you did so for 100 years without sleeping, sir.” True, I thought, plus why would I care to if I had someone to carry it around with me, “Anyway, I brought you here so I can feed your little human stomach, sir.” “Why do you keep calling me sir?” the question made Hemix turn at last, “It’s a habit, sir.” “Robots don’t have habits…” I rejected. “I do, a programmed habit, sir.” “Just like your habit of being annoying to me?” “Part of it, sir.”

I stood up away from the blanket I was laying down on, at least he considered my health, or was programmed to do so, I was trying to figure out how Hemix was made, who programmed him, what is the purpose of him protecting me. He is now cooking a nice smelling meal of canned beans and spices, I think smoked paprika, maybe sweet chilli, both.

I looked around the place I was in, it looked like a wholesale warehouse, with boxes of food and other materials people need, or want actually, mostly want. There is really nothing other than food here that I would need, maybe it would make my life easier, but I can surely survive without them. Napkins, who needs them right now, don’t need to wipe the dirt off my hand so people think I am “modern” or “civilized”. Brooms, when you have a whole city for yourself, why should you sweep any place, or clean a space to impress someone, even if there are people around, I think I will, and they will, care more for their own survival than cleaning a room to be “socially accepted”.

The warehouse roof has many holes, enabling sunlight through, dust floating silently and calmly everywhere, no sounds can be heard but the boiling of water from the bean pot Hemix is working on. It is a relieving silence somehow, even though the fear of being in a desolate lonely place creeps behind your ears, you still find the idea of being the only person alive a blissful one. No need for useless conversation, even the deep philosophical ones, no need for smiling or frowning, no need for asking or giving, it is just you and the barren ruins of a once lived city, at least that’s what I imaged it to be, or remembered. Nothing better than being free of all social shackles with a robotic servant that doesn’t question your reason, but tries to challenge it, in a quirky way, by annoying you.

“You need more carrots?” I asked out of sympathy to the working robot, “Beans will do as good, sir.” He replied without taking his glowing eyes off the pot, “I thought you fuelled on carrots.” “Nope, nuclear energy can be extracted from most substances, it’s only a simple reaction happening in this fine torso” he taps on his belly “and I am all set up, sir.” That’s pretty sustainable, I thought, humans’ bodies need to learn some of that, too bad nuclear energy, or waste, fucks up our weak digestive system. “Done sir!” he bellowed in excitement, and brought the meal still in its pot, “No plates?” I complained, “You are in a ruined city, most things destroyed, had no food for hours, red eyes, and you want to eat in a plate, sir?” he finished with a confused tone, “Sometimes you gotta treat yourself.” I shrugged, “Not today, sir.” He placed the pot in front of me on a shaky wooden box, “What’s wrong with the box?” I asked in confusion, “Nothing…” he tilted his head upwards, “oh crap.” The shake became more violent, and soon the whole ground felt like a salt shaker, not that I have been in one, but I imagined sometimes how does it feel to be a salt grain, being shacked like a mystery bag of plastic balls, creating an earthquake that drops the unfortunate to the food plate of hell.

The calm wind and sand started to get irritated, and soon enough the wooden warehouse started to crumble. “Running out with your bean pot will be most wise, sir.” I didn’t feel like it, but I thought it would be better to listen to the all-knowing robot, Hemix.

Lungs 4

I am back, or I have come again, or was I dreaming, the reality of where I am stopped mattering to me, where is this place, and where is that place with Hemix, all I can do is figure out the moment. I tried by asking, “What just happened?” not that the old orange-haired man would know, nor that I was expecting the answer I wanted to hear to clear everything up. Everything, too much to take anyway. “You try to steal-us, that ‘What just happened’!” the old man explained as if I would know. “You think you with dust pants can just come in and get the food of free?!” the old man’s momentum started to build, but before it grew into anger, even though his voice was monotoned, I said “I am new here, I have no idea what you are talking about!” “HAH!” the old man exploded with understanding, or so he thought, “That explains your strangeness of hair, where is the hand that carries the Nampolize token?” What? I asked to all his statements and question, what strange hair, what token? “By Nemesis, did you sneak the city?” I realized his talk was very poetic to my ears, “I didn’t, well… I kind of just woke up here…” I looked at my pants “With dust on my pants.”

Here we go again, that same bright dust, this is where I figured to stop realizing it and accepting it would always there whenever I came back to consciousness, or un- consciousness, or maybe it is neither, hell I don’t know. The fact that I am here now, doesn’t matter physically or mentally, means that I just need to concentrate on solving what is here, and leave whatever I saw before to another time, until it “comes back”. “Well, words you create are of unfamiliarity to me, but you seem of innocence, you better transform the hair to Nampol or you will be exterminated to the Nampoliks Green Waters.”

Too many terms, un-understandable terms, what are you talking about, I asked, he laughed, I am more confused, he offered his hand to help me up, a robotic hand I realized, “Well then…” his faced turned into a thinking phase, looking to his upper right, “Drifter, your name is, I have no cares of your previous ‘life’, you have no needs of past when working under my hands.” He explained with a smile. “Working under your hands?” I asked in confusion, when did I volunteer to do so? “Well of course, you need the hand that carries the Nampolize token for the soul to seek survival.”

“Right…” I brushed my black pants with a flick of the hand showing a hint of “I am ready for anything” through my body language, and stood with a straight back, it seemed I have done that many times, but couldn’t remember when and why, I almost saluted intuitively, but stopped my hand before it was visibly seen creating movement. Nevertheless, I asked what was on my mind “So, what with the Nampolize token? Do I need to carry one in my hand so I can pay for the food?” the man gave out an half mocking, half “you innocent ignorant man” laugh, “Metaphorically indeed, amongst other things. Follow me.”

I walked with him through a entrance on the right of the “ordering” counter that lead us into a colourful hallway, mostly purple and orange lines and shapes, creating intense chrome of un-identifiable shapes, but they seemed sensible shapes nevertheless, I thought of asking the old man of their story, but resolved in not doing so, I already had many things on my mind to think of, there is no sense in adding more water to an over-flowing cup, it won’t provide more water to drink. I switched my attention to the old man in front of me, still following him through a corridor that lead to an opened room, with no door, like a line with a square at the end of it, come to think of it, at both ends. The old man was normal in size, long dark orange hair, no trace of white hairs, wearing a white overall with a purple shirt, black shoes, and a strange orange shaded circler “symbol” on his non-robotic hand. He seemed like a healthy and peaceful man by the way he talked and the way he walked.

“What is your name, sir?” I asked while we were turning into the room, where he produced, from a desk drawer, a computerized stamp, with a medium sized needle coming out from the centre of the bottom side of it, where the stamping has its effect. He took my right hand, faced the palm upwards, “The name you search his Hemex. Now this might provide a painful, maybe darkening, experience, but none to worry, tis safe.”

Before I could exhale my surprise, confusion, and fear, the stamp struck my right hand’s palm. My breath held in mid-moment, a feeling of numbness started travelling through my body, starting from my hand. I felt it creeping into eyes, and my vision was coloured by the colour I love the most, and fear the most, black.

Heart 3

A Robot? That’s what you are! You nuclear machines are robots! “Yes sir.” the robot responded, “Who are you, and what on bricks is happening?” I screamed at the robot, “I am Hemix, your personnel robot, sir. Have you lost your mind, sir?” Personnel robot? I don’t get it, this is too confusing for me, I wake up in a place with orange-haired people, and now I have fallen near “my personnel robot” in a barren city, what the hell happened here… The city in front of me in ruins, the towers and modern buildings it once had are no more than falling rocks and broken metal structures, the land is dark brown, almost shit colored, but a bit brighter than that, it seems like shit mixed with sand and water, or nuclear waste?! I ask Hemix, “What do I look like sir, a biologist?” he answered and took me in surprise, “If you’re my personnel robot, and I am your master, what’s up with the attitude?” the question made the robot look confused with a “okaai…” face, “You programmed me to have an attitude that annoys you… siiir” he answered me like I was an idiot.

Well, this day is getting weirder and weirder, but what’s the point of trying to figure it out, I shrugged, got up, and brushed bright dust from my white pants, right, they are white now, the dust was as bright as the one I had on my black pants at Nampoliks City, which brushed away and disappeared in the air, again.

“Well, what’s he situation here my good friend, Hemix... did I give you that name?” the robot nodded with a sad face “Well, too bad, can’t change your name now, what is up with the fucked up city?” “I saved your ass, sir.” The robot said, I waited for him to continue, but we had an awkward silence, not really awkward, I felt comfortable with the metal machine, but when I say “awkward silence” I mean I was waiting for him to say something, and he was waiting for me to say something, which I realized after a minute of that silence “Oh right… thanks?” the robot smiled, well at least he looked like he smiled. I was observing his form while he was telling me about how city got ruined by a strange occurrence that he didn’t know about. His feet were wheels and legs a flexible metal tube that attached to his solid torso, which extended two arms that looked the same as his legs, with human-looking hands, but made out of metal.

He said his system shut down before the “mess” happened, and he woke up, trying to find me, took him 30 minutes, and he saw me laying down with a carrot in my hand, which apparently is fuel for him, so he “ate” it and took me to safety, away from the falling buildings. His head looks like a French elegant thief, with a black flat hat on top of it, very fine design I must say. His mouth was a barely visible line when it’s not functioning, but when he talks it vibrates and creates colorful shapes out of that one line. He mentioned something I couldn’t hear very well, something about broken things, his gangster-accented voice was drowned by a sound of flute music, something about when being broken, makes you insane? The music drifted me into another image in front of me, my vision didn’t become black, it just changed from Hemix with a background of ruins to a leafy roof, it didn’t look old, very clean actually, and well built, but it had palm leaves hanging between man-made cracks.

“You again! I knew you be troubles!” the orange-haired old man looked down at me with his one-eyebrow-up look and arms folded.

Brain 2

Doesn’t nuclear machine sound much better than nuclear bomb, I asked myself. Basically nuclear machines would have two functions, operate with a programmed task using nuclear energy, and explode when fallen from the sky, that’s what made them so beautiful, the beauty of multi-purpose, I didn’t care if the purposes were good or bad, the fact that a name like “nuclear machine” can abolish the use of the word “nuclear bomb” fascinated me; unless the nuclear machine is friction proof…

My head hurts, I am thinking too much of the past, or trying to memorize what happened in the past, just so I can remember how I got to this strange city with green-desert gardens. You might ask me, what the hell does green-desert gardens even mean? “Preposterous Crap!” is what I shouted when I first saw them behind me, just in front of that motel I saw on the map. But it was there, it’s like a desert, but everything green in a desert is densely populated in this garden. Not like an oasis though, no water, water fountains, yes, but no pounds or lakes. And not like a beach, since it had cactuses and dry spiky plants. And it wasn’t over-populated or chaotically populated; the green-desert garden had walk paths through it made from hard sand, that were surrounded by soft, pure, unmoving sand, the “grass” part of the garden. The cactuses were nice to look at too, they had flowers blooming all over them with different colours on each cactus, the dry spiky plants created swirly shapes that go up in the air and then fall down to form a gate, the water fountains were flowerless cactuses that had a natural tap.

I am hungry now, I need some food, my stomach is starting to contract and has gotten smaller. I always thought about this mysterious morphing of the stomach, why would it get smaller? Is it shying away from the other organs? Or are the other organs harassing her because she became weak from no food, so they trap the stomach to her centre, and the stomach enhances her left strength by concentrating it in a smaller area? I duno, I never really tried to figure it out, it’s more fun when kept mysterious. But the stomach also gets greedy and arrogant when it gets food, it starts to grow and asks for more! You go eat and get filled, and after 2-3 hours you get hungry again. Who said we have a choice, the stomach surely does have control over us.

There was no one at the bakery when I arrived, but the place seemed open, with flute music on and fans made out of palm leaves were spinning on the wall (not the ceiling??). I tried to call for someone, no answer after 2 minutes, called again, still no one feels like getting up and serve the hungry customer, they probably have big stomachs. Then I noticed a strange illustration signage, no words, just shapes, just like the map, everything is illustrated by its function. This illustration had a hand and a diagram of the counter in front of me. The hand, through picture steps, goes on an orange circle, then you choose to move it to a certain angle, and then the food pops up from a purple circle, just next to the orange one.

I wasn’t sure what each angle would produce, I didn’t see any menu, but the illustration had the hand going northeast, sense I already saw the pie or cake (not sure what it was) that was produced from northeast, which didn’t look very “filling”, I decided I will go southwest.

My hand slid towards southwest, but nothing popped out the purple circle, instead the room got filled with a “warning” red light, the doors of the bakery closed, the palm-leaves fans stopped. Something smelled funny, but I didn’t have time to recognize the smell, I fainted.

Mind 1

I didn’t remember of how I got here, all I can remember is myself holding a carrot amongst falling nuclear machines. No, I am not talking about nuclear missiles or bombs, whatever they call them today, they were nuclear machines, machines that were operated by nuclear energy, and they were falling from the sky… I guess when they do that, they can be “nuclear bombs”, but not in the general sense of the word.

Now I am lying down on grey streets with dark purple stains, the painter must have carried a dark purple paint bucket that stirred and dripped on the street while he was painting it with faint grey paint, that’s how they looked to me.

I stood up brushing the brown dust from my black pants, the dust was surprisingly brighter than normal, as in color, the color wasn’t just how dust might look on black pants, but it was almost paint that flew away with a flick of my hand and disappeared into the air.

I tried to find out where I have fallen into, or what have fallen on me, and there in front of me was a map. “Nampoliks City” it read, I brushed my eyes, it saw “Nampoliks City”. I never saw this sign before, or heard of this city before, at least a city near where I was, and I was sure I knew all the cities around my city.

An orange-haired man passed between me and the Nampoliks City map, am I in Ireland? I asked him, trying to be funny, he said no, with no trace of feeling insulted, you are in Nampoliks City, I responded “So I have read there.” He gave me a “right…” look with a raised eyebrow, looked me up and down, and moved away, I didn’t get to ask him more questions. Even though the man looked strange, I thought I knew him, but that’s normal, my memory is always vague.

I didn’t really feel anxious or scared, I have always wanted to wake up in a place I didn’t know, especially after I thought it was the end of the world when the nuclear machines dropped, but they were sadly friction proofed, the nuclear energy in them didn’t explode, so I didn’t make as much damage most people that ran for their life thought, not me, I stood outside smiling at the beautiful machines. Paradoxical? Beautiful nuclear machines? Some people might argue, but nevertheless, they were beauty in my eyes. My before-fainting memory began to regain status.

I took a step forward to look at the map, and the map mirrored my movement, I jumped back in surprise, and the map did so too. I tried again with caution, and realized the map’s elements were popping out, like a strip of rays engulfing me, I stepped unconsciously in the middle of the orange circle on the ground in front of the map board and the whole of Nampoliks City came wrapping around me. I saw all the areas and where they were located, the baker here, the park just on my right, the motel just behind me, and the Library a bit further on my northwest. The Library, yea, that place would have some information and people with information, I thought. I saw a couple walking behind the map board, orange-haired, strange, even though they had a different shade, It’s not common to see more than one person with orange hair in one place, I mean, I do love orange hair for no apparent reason, and short hair, which what the girl had, but it was just bizarre.

I turned back, and soon I realized, everyone had orange hair, smiling and walking through green-desert gardens.