A/N: There is some strong language at points in this one (as a note for those more prudish than others). Can YOU find them all? XD
With that, enjoy!
XxXxXxXxXxX
Chapter 2
He stood for about an hour at the foot of the Richmond Building, just standing there, looking around at the people that passed by. He debated with himself whether he should move or not, but every time he prepared himself to take a step forward, he stopped.
Where was he supposed to go?
September turned to look up the building's face, its numerous glass panels shimmering as they reflected the light of the morning sun. It was clear that he couldn't go back; that much he knew. But his banishment brought along many other problems, chief among them the inability to travel through space and time. Since the Perpetual Halls of the Timeless Forever Place was connected to all Planck times in the collective histories of all worlds, it served as a sort of a convenient hub for September and his kind; to travel between various worlds and their associated eras, the Servants of That Which They Served needed simply to enter there in one place and time, then exit into another.
The prospect of having to pass the rest of his existence in a temporally linear fashion, then, came as highly distressing to him. So many moments, so many places, so many things were now beyond his reach. So many possibilities.
So much food.
Food.
It then occurred to him that he would have to eat soon; the constriction in his gut and accompanying gurgle made it more than clear. So with hunger as the catalyst, he marched forth into the city, first taking a right, then backtracking to the left when he changed his mind to go the other way before turning point yet again upon deciding that his original route was in fact the superior one.
As he made his way down the street, he struggled to cope with the disparity between the world as he had always experienced it and this new world that he was now experiencing. Where he once had temporal prescience, able to see things as they would unfold before they unfolded, his perception was now restricted to the present as it was happening. At first, he was having a hard time anticipating the movements of oncoming pedestrians, who looked at him strangely as he passed; he bumped into more than a few along the way.
"Watch where you're going, pal!"
"What the hell's the matter with you?"
"Wear a goddamn hat for Christ's sake!"
But as he navigated the sidewalk, he found that the powerful computational capabilities of his mind still remained, and while his mental potential was diminished in the absence of his abilities, he slowly learned to calculate the probable outcome of the various synchronous events that were occurring around him, and was therefore able to adjust his trajectory, minimizing the risk of initiating any further collisions as best as he could with his sore musculature.
Or so he thought; for little did he know that it wasn't really his observational skills that made the task easier, but everyone else, cautiously keeping their distance from the strange bald man who was walking as though he had soiled himself.
September then decided to test the rest of his abilities in order to assess what other faculties he might have retained. For a start, he discovered that he could no longer teleport at will. He went to a secluded alleyway for a test run, closing his eyes and standing in place, bobbing up and down to initiate the teleportation process. But after a few minutes of steady bobbing, he opened his eyes to find that he didn't move an inch; the only thing he actually did manage to do was to profoundly disturb the nearby homeless man who had been watching the whole time.
He also found that he had no more quantum mechanical influence on the course of unfolding history, just as the others had forewarned. Nor could he interact with mechanical and electric systems through touch anymore, as evidenced by repeatedly jacking his thumb into the locks of cars stopped at red lights.
The only things he had retained were his natural thought processes, his innate computational and observational prowess, and his biological need for large quantities of edible sustenance.
By lunchtime, he came to a stop before a McDonald's, staring through the window at the multitude of people and the delicious foods they were eating. He looked at the promotional posters, advertising the prices of their products. Seeing this, he reached into his pockets, but to his great dismay, no money was to be found; he removed his hand only to see small bits of lint. He wondered if they would accept lint in exchange for a meal, but then figured that the probability of lint passing as acceptable substitution for money in this particular situation was very low, so he resigned to stare into the window, watching others eat the food that was denied to him.
"Excuse me, sir," said a man suddenly, addressing the individual who was pressing his face against the window. "We're receiving complaints from our customers saying that you're bothering them. If you're not coming in the restaurant, then I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
September removed his face from the glass pane to see a young man wearing a McDonald's uniform, standing with arms crossed. He then turned to the window, where a family was also staring at him from their table, similarly nonplussed and somewhat appalled by his appearance. Seeing this, September left without a word, head slightly drooped, realizing that without money, he would have to forgo food for a long time, perhaps even forever.
And for the first time in his conscious existence, September had missed a meal.
Disheartened, he wandered around the city for a few hours before stumbling on a park. He made for a bench down the path; his ankles, as with the majority of his body, were still aching from the rigorous shaking at the hands of the Power Sucker Thing, and he deemed that his feet needed rest. However, he was met with sharp pain as he sat due to his buttocks still being quite sore, so he quickly rose to alleviate the intensity of the alarming sensation, a single thought piercing his mind.
Hemorrhoids.
He recalled having once read somewhere that humans could develop something called hemorrhoids, which could cause great pain when trying to sit down. Could it be that his former comrades had spanked him so hard that they have given him hemorrhoids? He began to think that they probably did; it was the only reasonable explanation as to why his hindquarters hurt so much when he sat down.
He reminded himself to consult a doctor sometime soon.
Confused, famished, and in pain, September meandered aimlessly throughout the park, sometimes staying on the paths, sometimes not, passing by trees, squeezing through bushes, and absent-mindedly waltzing straight through a couple's romantic picnic, kicking food and utensils all over the place (an act for which he was promptly chased away).
He eventually stumbled upon a children's playground, devoid of any occupants. September thought this to be a fortuitous find; perhaps these contraptions would help him take his mind off his problems.
With that in mind, he entered the designated play area, the gravel crunching beneath his polished shoes. First he tried the slide, but found it to be a woefully underwhelming experience. Then he tried the merry-go-round. He wasn't sure what purpose it served at first, so he simply spun it around as fast as he could. As its momentum decreased, he decided that perhaps he should try to embark the platform as it spun. So he did, hopping on once the platform had achieved terminal velocity; he was rather quickly ejected, rolling onto the ground in a daze.
The suited man also tried the spring riders. He thought that the different shapes and designs signified that they each held distinct properties, so he gave each one a shot to see which provided the better overall experience; however, he soon discovered that the zebra behaved the same way as the crocodile and the elephant, so he abandoned all of them, especially since he couldn't bear to sit on them for too long and was way too big to properly use them anyway.
Next came the see-saw. He positioned himself on one end and started propelling himself upward, hopping up and down while gripping the handle tightly. But after five minutes of repeated bouncing, something told him that he was doing something wrong. He then noticed that there was a second seat on the other end, and it all fell into place; he would need a comrade to aid him in realizing the full potential of this device.
He scanned his surroundings; a boy of approximately thirteen years of age was approaching his direction, apparently intent on crossing through the park as a shortcut to his intended destination. When he was close enough, September addressed him.
"What are you looking at?" asked the kid.
"Will you play with me?"
"Fuck off."
The boy distanced himself from the strange man; when this strange man began to follow him, continuing to ask whether he wanted to play with him, the boy accelerated his pace.
"Get away from me, you fucking perv!"
The boy was running now, clutching to his sagging pants and leaving September at the edge of the play area. Dejected, he decided to leave the playground, especially since it didn't manage to take his mind off his troubles; if anything, they only became far more evident.
The skies were becoming overcast as he resumed his wayward course to nowhere in particular. As time progressed, however, he began to recognize certain landmarks. He quickened his stride, following the path ingrained in his memories until he reached the corner of Wallace and Long.
The place where this whole thing began.
The intersection was just as lively as it had always been, the traces of the collision he had inadvertently caused all but gone. The humans scurried about around him, not paying attention to the slightly deranged man standing idly on the corner. Did they even register his presence? He had always found the degree to which they were unaware of their immediate surroundings to be a curious trait in humans; yet now, their limited awareness only served to further augment the sense of disconnect he experienced facing the world he had been thrust into.
At least the dog that had distracted him was nowhere to be seen. Following his banishment, dogs had been demoted from the second position to the fourth on his list of favorite animals, now superseded by humans, octopi, and dodo birds, who were favored above all others. He used to travel to the past to the Isle of Mauritius where the dodo made their home; here, he would spend hours conversing telepathically with them. Contrary to their doltish appearance, their intelligence was actually unsurpassed in the animal kingdom, and they were masters of Musical Theory and Composition, by night performing great vocal symphonies so powerful and moving that they would have inspired the whole of Mankind to cut the bullshit and get their act together.
Alas, his visits were cut short when dodo kind, finding their material bodies too cumbersome and limited for their awesome intellect, collectively shed their earthly forms to ascend to higher realms of being. And now, he would never be able to return to the times before the Ascension of the Dodo in Mauritius of old nor communicate with them in the Fifth Dimension where their incorporeal selves now resided, being confined to drift in the currents of linear time.
All because of that dog.
As he crossed the street, utterly oblivious to the cars that were forced to brake abruptly, September reminded himself to sternly reproach this concupiscent canine if ever their paths should cross again.
He continued his lone trek through Boston, slowly leaving the urban areas to end up in the suburbs. The reasons as to why people either evaded him, ignored him, or demand that he leave was beyond his capability to comprehend, and his inability to solve this conundrum discouraged him. Was this to be the remainder of his existence? To forevermore wander without purpose, ever to be shunned by all who encounter him? He began to wonder whether it would be better to simply lie down until he faded away.
In fact, upon further contemplation, he decided that it was the most logical course of action; for without a purpose, there was no reason for him to exist.
So he lay down where he stood, flat on his back, limbs at his side and staring straight up, determined to do absolutely nothing. It was a pleasant and tranquil experience, he thought, not having to worry about anything in particular; he envisioned himself lying there in undisturbed peace until he faded away entirely.
...Goodbye, now...
The front door of the house then opened, jamming into September's recumbent form.
"What the hell are you doing on my porch?" asked the man of the house, unable to fully open the door.
September rose, then sauntered down the driveway with the grace of a bipedal gazelle as the old man chased after him, narrowly escaping the striking range of his cane.
It was clear to him that he would have to select a less inconvenient location for the disintegration process.
His efforts were now invested in scouting the neighborhood for a new area in which to lie down for at least another six billion years; if time would not take him, he figured, then the dying sun definitely would. Yet there were no places to his eyes that seemed suitable, and while he figured that the answer may lie in distancing himself as far away from areas of human density as he could, he was growing weary of walking, so the idea was discarded.
"Hey mister, would you like some lemonade?" asked a little girl as the bald man strolled by.
September halted before the table, whereupon pitchers and cups and lemons and other paraphernalia related to lemonade sales were placed.
"I do not have any money," said September.
The girl seemed disappointed for a moment, but after stopping to consider something, her youthful joviality returned.
"...That's okay!" she said. "You look kind of sad, so I'm going to give you a cup anyway to cheer you up! Look, they're even made with real lemons. See?"
She held the yellow fruit in her small hand with a proud smile that was missing a few teeth. September reached for it, observing the lemon from various angles in his hand.
"I'll make a new batch of my special lemonade just for – eeeewwwww!"
But her cries of revulsion did not September from chomping down on the lemon, progressively stuffing it into his mouth, peel and all, as the juices spilled all over his chin and rained onto the sidewalk. In seconds, he had devoured the small fruit in full; it didn't pack much of a punch, and it wasn't all that filling either, but he enjoyed what tang his insensitive taste buds could detect.
"Thank you, little girl," said September. "Here, have some lint."
He placed the ball of lint on the table in the hopes that she would accept the monetary substitute as his contribution in what he understood as the reciprocal nature of any human exchange, not wanting to raise the ire of this child by not abiding to their customs; when she didn't say anything, staring at the small tuft of material with great confusion, he assumed that she did, and so he left her behind, not bothering to wipe his moist and glistening chin.
The encounter had left him intrigued. This one was not quite as hostile towards him as the others had been. Could it be that there were other humans like this child? He did not know if there were any more; upon further thought, he revised his initial assertion as false.
For there was one human he knew that fit these criteria. He was an adult male in the later stages of his life cycle, one who was neither aggressive nor evasive in his presence. One who was more fascinating than most of the humans he had impassively observed over the ages.
One, he realized, who had once been in the same situation as him.
Of course.
Like him, this human had been forced to adapt to a world he had suddenly been thrust into, and, as September noted, has been able to do so successfully. Given that he has interacted with this individual a few times before, perhaps he would be willing to divulge what methods he has employed to achieve total integration in this irrational world.
Why had this course of action not occurred to him before?
"Hey, you're that creep who hangs out at the playground!" said the kid from before as he approached the bald man. "What the fuck are you doing here? Wait, have you been following me or something? Huh? Hey, listen to me when I'm talking to you, freak –"
September nonchalantly shoved his hand into the boy's face as he passed by, knocking him to the ground as he stared into the horizon; there was no time to lose. Armed with a new purpose, he set off in the general direction of the house of Walter Bishop, Prime Variable in the Great Causal Chain and frequent associate.
He would surely know what to do.
