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.