30/ Grace Note (II)
At the precipice between consciousness and dream, I see the old man. Ah, it must be because he's told me this story so many times that I'm able to visualize everything in 1080p.
The magical engine keeps the train running towards its destination while the passengers face the opposite direction. They're all watching a black-haired woman in a kimono with a blonde secretary's head in her lap. Don't tell me the same old story, told the same old way. I don't have the energy for that. I need to rest. I have more important things to do tomorrow and my arms aren't fully healed. So close your eyes and let dark oblivion take you.
. . .
Why can't I go to sleep?
I try to set aside the images — encapsulate the train within the depths of a frozen, disemboweling forest in the bubbles of the dark water where I began. Let me drown until I recede into tomorrow like every other night. But I can't, for my consciousness slips its ethereal fingers into the folds on my brain, gripping and then dunking it into a tank of black and white film over and over. The liquid film slaps the organ so violently that white water foams around my hand doing the dunking. Within the bubbling tank, the scene tries to play, but the me on the outside, repulsed, reflexively pulls me out only to force me back in a second later.
— I told me, I don't want to see this because I know what it is.
Let the scene play through me so the information can corrode part of who I am.
— I don't want to end up as just another scorched mark on that island's mountain. If I am to be filled, I want to be filled with the things that I should want to be filled with. That's what he would have wanted because he's a weak, pathetic —
I'm human. I have to be human. But if I was a machine — a machine doesn't stop existing no matter how many parts are replaced. As long as the core is present and the circuits aligned, the combustion engine will run.
— Why?
My answer is letting go, drowning me to affirm that this is not just the old man's memory. That's why I can see [ruby=the old man's]my[/ruby] reflection in the window, hear the accusations, smell the tension in the air, taste the chill from the receding blizzard, feel the rhythm of the train moving under all of us, and unlike last time, the exchange does not just become a record my brain compiles but a conscious memory to enslave me, us.
"Ah yes, when Olga Marie took it out of the imaginary number pocket, Trisha's head was still alive. Anyway, within imaginary number magic formulae time is stopped. While there wasn't enough time to write a note, she chose to leave us with the starkest dying message. With her last breath, she left behind a single word. What do you think it was?"
Even Rich doesn't come close to how she weaves words like a conductor's baton. All the heretics in the room are entranced by something unpleasant.
"It whispered. . . Karabo."
Murderous hostility assails me, but I know the story so it can't hurt me. Because the old man survives, raised me, and is enjoying his retirement upstairs.
"Karabo Frampton," she repeats. "Your Hindsight is determinative — no, strictly speaking, it's more determinative than predictive?"
Predictive — calculating the past from surrounding information to simulate a perspective.
Determinative — choosing the past based on the present to affirm an interpretation.
"It's often said that prediction or determination makes no difference to Hindsight. Unlike the future, the past is constant, so it doesn't matter how you look into the past. But, that's just the conventional wisdom. Yesterday's topic, the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception which imposes death equally of all that is seen, the Rainbow-ranked Mystic Eyes, is anything but conventional."
On the verge of simmering, bubbles collect around my brain within the liquid film. I'm melting. Part of my brain is melting into this vat, mixing with the black and white, telling me to grab my eye that doesn't exist.
Why is the old man gripping his eye? The old man's eyes aren't those once-fabled eyes that now belong to two Japanese citizens, one with a lengthy Church file.
"I've never seen such a mystic eye, but if you'll allow me to use my imagination and speculate for a moment. Wouldn't it be the supreme form of Foresight or at the very least one of the abilities that allow one to see fate?"
A moan comes out of [ruby=the old man's]my[/ruby] mouth, "The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. . . are the supreme form of. . . Foresight." The woman nods. Those words weren't meant for her.
"Naturally, everyone eventually dies. Because everything is imperfect, hidden within all is the wish to be beautifully broken and created anew. Looking at the end and reeling it into the present, what else can you call it other than the supreme form of Foresight," she explains.
The words that I managed to croak out are telling me to listen to the woman accusing the old man because she's describing my natural enemy. That once upon a time, someone thought the world was unsatisfactory and it would be better to reject everything instead of facing an uncertain future — to create the absolute Right from Truth. What a lonely wish.
"If that's the case, the opposite is also true. Everyone was born. Imperfectly born, we resent the original error. Looking upon the beginning and having it rise to the surface of the present would be the supreme form of Hindsight, no? Ahh, if that is the case, then the world might look like bubbles."
Bubbles haunt the old man and me. That's why we got along so well. That's why he was chosen to be my foster-father. Who said that or was it never needed to be said. Something simply accepted.
"Like a space-time bubble," a snow-white wisp of a man forever on the edge of death and therefore the dearth of Father's expectation until Mama made me a violin and gave me something to do interjects.
"You're familiar with the subject matter?" The black-haired woman encourages him. A possible expert witness can't hurt.
"I'm only familiar with the scientific concept. At extremely small scales, objects are known to be like aggregates of bubbles. I doubt what he sees is scientifically accurate, but would you say it's a concept close to that model?"
"Probably just like that."
Replace the probabilistic electron cloud with a bounded field line sandwiched between two monolayers of mystery and strip away the nucleus because electrostatic interactions and gravitational fields aren't necessary to hold the shell together. The past is not grains of memory and record dispensed from the present into three dimensions, but individual bubbles, until they aggregate, their interfaces brush and decide whether the individual [ruby=flocculate]reject[/ruby] or [ruby=coalesce]affirm[/ruby] the narratives reflected on their surfaces. But no matter how numerous or large the bubble may be, they're still hollow.
". . . Ah, unfortunately, unlike the rumored Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, this Mystic Eye mostly likely hasn't reached the extreme. It does not see the end. It does not see the beginning. At best, it recognizes and then calls forth a previously established past event — or something of that sort. Determinative Foresight establishes the future. Then it's obvious that Determinative Hindsight affirms what was established in the past. So, if we have [ruby=cessation]death[/ruby] as the end of all things, it's natural that the beginning of all is [ruby=activation]life[/ruby]. These Mystic Eyes revive the facts of the past in the present."
Politely and meticulously explained, the logic reminds me of the monthly plinking contest at the shooting range where you're given twenty-seven rounds to shoot twenty-seven empty cans arranged in a row. Entry fees go to a local cause of the winner's choice. The Tolosa Sportsman Association calls it 'having all your ducks in a row,' after a line in a Stephen King novel one of the owners really found funny. Because even non-hunters know ducks never line up except when mother duck leads them over the hills and far away. Her words are just like the bubbles she's trying to describe, expose, and cut-down. Are they established because they accurately describe a past or is it because she's established consensus to the point nothing else could have happened in the past without new evidence? She didn't even need that particular pair of Mystic Eyes.
"In short, Mystic Eyes that reproduce what happened in the past?" Pink-hair, eye-patch, sobbing as the scratchy whirl of a cranial drill bit grinds against the skull to build the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, abbreviated artificial highway into my airhead.
"Yes, but what can be reproduced from the past should be limited. For instance, in this case, the pre-recorded slash was most likely played back at a specific time, like this."
She picks up an apple and a fruit knife. They must have been brought from the dining car. With a deliberate motion, she draws a vertical line in the air with the blade.
"The slash is recorded here."
Then with her left hand, she moves the apple to where she drew the line and makes a small cut with the knife.
"After that, if the Mystic Eye holder observes it, the recorded slash severs the target. I would say this is how this Mystic Eye is used — what do you think. . ."
She looks at me.
"Karabo Frampton."
"Me. . ." There's so much resistance in the throat that when the words spill out, it feels like having a tooth extracted.
"On the Rail Zeppelin, it's easy to lay the trap; after all, the train runs on rails." She traces imaginary rails with the knife. "You slash at thin air in the preceding car with the knowledge Trisha's head will eventually reach the same place. It's easy enough to see where she was sitting and you could always increase the length of your slash to account for anything unexpected."
Everyone watches the apple traveling to the knife. When it finally reaches its predetermined destination, "The train had stopped in the woods when Trisha's corpse was found. Karabo, you were outside. You looked through the window, recalled the past you perceived, and that area was slashed once again with Trisha Fellow's head. At that moment, she sealed her head in imaginary number space."
This has [color=blue]everything[/color]/[color=red]nothing[/color] to do with [ruby=the old man]me[/ruby]/[ruby=me]the old man[/ruby].
The eyes have been explained; that's what my consciousness wanted to show my brain, right? Because of what the old man and I talked about this morning — how what he perceived eventually enslaved him and by baring that part of his soul, I would know better. That's how a mentor and apprentice relationship goes. So me, let me go to sleep already. I have a Dead Apostle to hunt tomorrow —
A white hat with a goatee tips the brim with my left hand and scratches sandy blonde hair under a toque blanche with my right as my left hand reloads a six-shooter because my right hand is clenched as I watch a moving company repossess my workshop, leaving only cobwebs as a reminder of the mysteries I once spun, "Hey, wait a sec, doesn't that mean the serial killings seven years ago were. . ."
The black-haired woman doesn't let him finish, "I don't know if you were the serial killer from seven years ago or even the killer this time around. There is no hard evidence. But in this case, there is one measure that we can take. Can you show me? If it's you — if it's your Mystic Eyes, no matter how far in the past she was decapitated, you can show us what actually happened."
"My Hindsight can't. . ."
Because my eyes aren't a mystery.
"I want everyone to wait."
The door to the lobby opens and in walks a teenager in glasses whose heart broke as I fell down the pit of betrayal wheeling a man with long black hair crying on a bridge at my own helplessness.
"Master!"
"Waver!"
Two shouts.
"Finally awake, Lord El-Melloi II?" Even the woman who controls the room acknowledges him.
"There was a little accident and I'm still a little unsteady on my feet, so I asked my disciple to prepare a wheelchair with the help of the Rail Zeppelin staff. . . Impossible, I wouldn't have thought Melvin would be here."
"Yo yo, It's normal to come running when a buddy's in a crisis!"
"This is none of your concern. And you're the only one who calls us buddies."
"Friendship is not formed from a mutual agreement! It's the intermingling of our hearts! Unconscious approval of each other! Let us further open our hearts to each other and embrace!"
What an agreeable young man. A little anemic and with the bags under his eyes of a predator unable to look away from its eventual meal, sure, but he's pushing all his resentment into a positive space. Can't fault him for that.
"Okay, okay, just shut it."
"Professor, your body. . ."
"There's no problem. Really, there's nothing. If there was, I wouldn't have come out." He strokes the top of her head through her hood's ash-grey fabric. If she were a student at my school, the teachers would have her take it off indoors.
"I heard about the situation from Caules. Many things have happened. . ."
". . . Yes," she nods. What emotion was lost within that simple answer? "So many things happened. . . so, so many things but I. . . couldn't. . . but you, Professor. . . "
"Ha, a Servant, a Child of Einnashe, imaginary number magecraft, and supreme Hindsight. So much crammed into half a day."
"Ho, where did you hear that from?"
"'You recalled the past you perceived and that area was slashed once again.' After hearing that much, you can guess what was talked about. Gray. . . we'll talk about the Servant later."
He lifts three fingers, his defensive trident.
"Miss Hishiri, your story has three problems."
"Such a dramatic entrance has left me eagerly waiting for your deductions."
"One, does Karabo's Mystic Eye even have such an ability? Two, even if such an ability were to exist it does not preclude another magus from committing Trisha Fellows' murder. Third, your deduction has no motive. There is no rational reason for Karabo Frampton to kill Trisha Fellows. You can't corner people with such incompleteness."
A deduction is an interpretation formed from the facts before one's eyes. Facts are only dangling points in the ether begging to be connected or dismissed. To challenge a deduction is to challenge a constellation forever falling through a vacuum.
"I see. Your forte, the whydunnit. As you say, the reason is unclear. Maybe the other magi could do something similar, but how do you explain Trisha's dying message? Either way, we don't follow the laws of a modern society nor are we police managing a state. [ruby=In dubio pro reo] In doubt, for the accused[/ruby]. There is not even a trace of a reason why we should follow such a principle here."
She understands this.
"If you need a reason, then how about his Mystic Eyes of Hindsight made him identify as the serial killer. After gazing at the serial killer seven years ago, the serial killer mixed into him. If the Mystic Eye went out of control, then it's easily probable."
He refuses to.
"Are you being serious?"
"And serious equals sincere? Whether we're serious or simply doing a bit doesn't make a big difference. After all, we're magi, Clock Tower magi. Don't we have enough cause with what I've detailed to restrain Karabo? If it's a question about ability, the evidence is right here."
"I'm telling you, I can't do something like that," I beg.
"Ahhh, you're telling me you can't? That's fine," she laughs at me. "Karabo's Mystic Eyes are on auction. Let's hear what ability your Mystic Eyes have right from the [ruby=Rail Zepplin's]Mystic Eye Collection Train's[/ruby] mouth.
"Heh, these Mystic Eyes will do just nicely."
An illusion within an illusion imprinting its concept in the brain of all of us within the room, the rose woman sprouts from poor soil, a shaggy, crimson carpet. She is the [ruby=regent]shadow[/ruby] who rules the train in her mistress's absence.
"It's time. I'll be taking them before the auction begins."
The room is silent. The rosy ghost is waiting for the old man to give his consent, but he won't speak. No, he can't speak because I'm the one who moves the mouth. But how can that be when I'm in my bed and it's —
"What. . . time. . . ?"
"The staff should have told you. We remove your Mystic Eyes half a day before the auction."
Everything is wrong. I don't have Mystic Eyes. You want the old man. Let me go upstairs to wake him up. Please. The old man is the one who should be having his eyes taken out.
"W-Wait! There's still —"
Her fingers as cold and thin as a single sheet of glass slip into my face.
— someone you haven't considered.
The words never manage to croak out of my dry, sour throat because
— Snap.
With the practiced, ghostly hand and precision of a witch doctor, she severs the spiritual body of my left optic nerve. Half the world and my breath disappear in an instant, snapping the film strangling my overheating brain. I wasn't given even the seconds necessary to scream because she finished her spiritual surgery and collected my right eye in less than a second.
I can't see because what she took were my[s]stic[/s] eyes.
I can't breathe. I try to draw breath, but all the oxygen was sucked out when my eyes were plucked out. Sucked out? No, it's used as propellant to set my melting brain on fire. Soon the smoke will ignite the liquid film but my consciousness refuses to pull my brain out. I grab at my chest because it hurts and because there's no longer anything to see. I collapse.
"Acting manager." Then, the sound of the old man's eyeballs splashing. "With this, the Mystic Eye extractions are complete."
"We can do transplants, but extraction is a secret technique only the acting manager knows. Usually, she's asleep and after she waves her hands about, she'll go back to sleep," someone I can no longer recognize says.
Sleep. Right. Go back to sleep. You'll wake up. This is just a bad dream. You can't breathe properly because your face is under the covers again, so just —
"Oh. . . this is amazing. I don't think Karabo was aware of this but these eyes reach 'Jewel' rank. They're very suitable as our auction's eye-catcher. The long-gone shadow of the past raises up to the present like foam, shall we call these the Mystic Eyes of [ruby=Transience]Umbral Foam[/ruby]?"
Cigarette burns begin to blacken the voided film, artificially aging it like parents do to children's treasure maps. Soon the offending memory will be forsaken, so affirm the past burning away until it's nothing but black snow in your mind, for everything is. . .
No, this is real, my dying brain screams, forcing me to accept my other senses.
What is happening to you on that train will continue until it reaches the event horizon known as the present. The accusation will chug along to auction. The auction is struck down by frenzied lightning summoned using the distortion of one Ancestor's train and another Ancestor's sterile child to create a [ruby=crenel]凹[/ruby] to be filled until it becomes a temporary paradise, [ruby=just like]unlike[/ruby] this town nestled in the bosom of the California Central Coast's Seven Sisters that means nothing to Dead Apostles.
Dead. . . Apostles. . .
That's right tomorrow you —
"HAAAAH —"
Pure darkness reverts to grayscale to discrete black and white as my consciousness pulls my brain out of the smoking film vat. I seal away everything that just happened somewhere that won't scald me and focus on the only one question on my mind that can't be related to anything I experienced.
How did someone install a Grail on this land, and more importantly, why?
Day 4 — End