Feast of a Hot Second
by Taryn O’Neill
“You don’t have to bear it alone, did they not tell you?”
He rushes up along side her, his sandals kicking up gold leaves on the forest path.
“Oh!”
She turns, the sack of orbs shining through the mesh bag over her ashen shoulder.
“I only have a little way to go.”
“But still!”
He touches her bag and it splits in two.
“It was too much. You must be new.”
She laughs as her load is indeed lighter and she picks up her pace.
“I am.” Then. “It’s my first.”
“Well, that’s obvious. I don’t even remember mine.”
“But you look so young!” she remarks.
“Reunions… sigh… I always think of them as a savory stew, warm comforting… food coma. No matter how many.”
“I’m just fucking excited.”
He grins at her in his spritely fashion. As two other people emerge from the woods onto the path, mesh bags of orbs over their backs.
He asks: “Do we want music music, or just music?”
“Just music, I think.”
And they continue with new friends amongst the forest sounds.
“I like this song.”
“Me too.”
— — — — — —
The armada of humans emerge out of the woods towards the massive knoll; emerald velveteen grass covers it. Bags of orbs shining like wings on the backs of everyone. The orbs now pulsate with excitement.
He turns to her, “Good thing we’re early, maybe we have a good shot of being picked.”
She leans in, “I heard the Mayor is coming.”
“Of the city?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“It’s where I just came from.”
He cocks his head at her, actually taken aback. Then looks at her skin, pale, learning to breathe. “Is it true what they say?”
“What? That’s it’s grey concrete blocks and people look like Legos?”
“No, that they still have pop-up ads.”
“Yes, that’s true too.”
“Huh.”
The group of beings mill about around the grassy knoll, a massive door vibrating with energy, closed but beckoning. The two new friends put down their mess bags, the blobs undulating like soon to be birthed fish eggs.
The she turns to him, nervous, “Where is the tech? How will we connect into the network?”
He shrugs, “How did you get your orbs?”
She thinks, “They were just there.”
“Exactly.”
And at that the doors open, booming, crackling, but no creaking. Prismatic light erupts from behind.
He nods, letting her step in front of him as everyone merges into a line, like tributaries into a river; gravity pulls.
— — — — -
“How long now?”
“How long has it felt?”
The Mayor looks to Bob, his driver, small face white with clown paint, considering.
“A while.”
The Mayor looks out the car — boxy, grey, the concrete city disappearing in the distance as the soft greenness rises around him.
“It’s been a moment since I’ve been out here.” He looks down at his device, screens and lights and sharp points attaching it self to his arm. “5 hours, apparently. I have’t gotten much done.”
Bob, his tiny blobbish figure squishes around, he pulls his neck, extending it to look at the Mayor, “I guess you still have a job.”
“I mean, at least for now. There are some who still like the old jobs. I do have to maintain for those who want it, it’s why I was elected.”
Bob, considers that, then looking at the Mayor, in his suit and grey skin that shares air with the concrete, entangled. But Bob can see the blood still ripples under the cellular ash. That contemplation flickers across the Mayor’s face. He is en route for a reason.
— — — — — —
The woman clutches the orbs tightly to her chest, what a place! Her young friend ambles causally beside her, the orbs still hanging in the bag over his shoulder. The music of life dances into every corner.
“And this is just the pre-party… Jeez Louise!”
Her eyes are big as a galaxies, spiraling at the event around her. Beings are everywhere, moving about under the dome. The open top revealing stars of every universe. The light — warm, undulating — skims the skin and eyes, nourishing on every level, radiating the perfect fragrance.
“You’re right, it is like a savory stew! But not heavy just… nummy.”
“You’re looking much better.”
She smiles at his observation, but secretly envious of his comfort here. But, she thought, it would be natural considering his people’s lineage as stewards of the world.
They walk past two beings and her eyes light up — “Hello!” she blurts. One being turns excitedly, “Hello!” They smile and stare, their hearts aligning.
“Come come! You gotta meet the MAN”.
Her young friend pulls her away (waving as he leaves) and towards the center of the pre-party — — towards a tree of sorts pointing up to the star-filled opening.
“Meet the Maternal Active Network…. she’s the MAN.”
The woman stares in awe at the misshapen tree, inverted, branches curling out and around, intertwined, like a network, widest at the top. The roots below them glow under the floor for as far and deep as the eye can see.
“And every dome has one of these?”
“Every single one entangled. Even on Saturn’s moons!”
“It really is a forest feast.”
“You like alliteration, don’t you.”
She shrugs, pleased with her self, staring at the beings moving around her, familiar, seen. She looks down at her arm. The mark is starting to form. She exhales, relieved.
— — — — — —
Bob pulls his transport up. The Mayor looks around, surprised.
“Oh we’re here.”
“Pre-party is just finishing. Did you want a meal?”
The Mayor thinks, “I’m not sure how my stomach would react. I think I’ll just have a bar.” He presses a command on his metallic device and a protein bar is burped into being.
“Perfect nutrition.”
“If you say so,” Bob replies. Stopping and dissolving the transport, the Mayor stumbling to keep his balance.
“How many walls?” Bob asks.
“What? Where?”
“The city.”
The Mayor consults his device and cocks his head in surprise, “63,120 still left. Approximately. Most are of the old materials. The ones that like to put up a fuss”
Bob nods and stretches himself a bit taller, extending his arms up to the darkened sky.
“I’d finish up your bar.”
The Mayor nods, pragmatically chewing off a corner.
— — — — — —
MAN’s mycelium were abuzz. Blinking in and out of existence. The number of Orbs in each dome were overwhelming, even for an entangled network. (And they could normally wrap their minds around A LOT). There are so many to parse through, the group expressed in an energy transfer. Will they be there all night? This feast was an important one.
— — — — — —
Shhhhhh. The pre-party lights swirled, then dissolved out to hazy glow.
The only light now in the dome was everyone’s pulsating orbs, alight in different hues. And the marks, so many were alight on people’s skin now. she looked down at hers, forming more now. Thank god. She looked over to new beings who she now knew and who knew her. They gave her a reassuring look.
“Wait for it…”
Her friend point to the tree excitedly. Its branches starting to flicker. Her eyes light up.
“You know they used to call it the wood wide web, as a joke?”
He responds to her comment with an arched eyebrow.
“I know, it’s an old joke.”
— — — — — —
MAN activated more of its networks, growing the circle, the reach. (They could only do this once every cycle, they still hadn’t evolved full access.) Once all were awake, considering the time zones, the Mother should speak. She would know which orbs to pick. Time to call in the rest of their friends.
— — — — — —
The Mayor stood outside the dome, admitting his nerves in a quick swallow of bile. He shuffled his hands like they held cue cards that needed to be reviewed. No one realized how important this was. what he needed to achieve in this event. He couldn’t return empty handed. He must not. He wished he could curse but then again the device would record it. He’d been there, done that.
He wondered what time it was when he saw it, the forest moving towards the dome. Insects, deer, tigers, unidentified mammals hidden throughout history, now a part of seen life. why are they here? But now they were witnesses. Having received the call.
The Mayor knew the time must be close. Willing himself to ignore his device.
— — — — — —
“Hello, HELLO!” The crowd turns to a voice in front of the misshapen tree.
“It’s Bob, I know him!” The woman points. “He drove me here.”
Bob has stretched himself more, larger, as he wipes the clown paint from his face onto his body, those colors swirling, alive and celebratory. His face beneath, undefined, amorphous but known.
“Bob drives most people here,” her young friend comments.
“It’s a marvel how he finds us. How long has he been working here?”
“Since, forever.”
She starts, distracted by a handsome woman, a red silk shawl fiery around her shoulders, “Oh! that is so beautiful! I need that! Did you buy that here?”
The young man flicks his eyes, suddenly a little impatient.
“I made it, it would look beautiful on you,” the woman sings, draping the shawl over the other. Then spinning away.
“Wow. The creative life.”
He nods. “Greed’s nemesis is music.”
“ALRIGHT. ALRIGHT!” Bob is once again in form and manipulated fashion.
“We are here for a feast! What is a feast? To nourish, to forgive, to bring together family…and most importantly today, to resurrect the LOST YEARS!”
The crowd erupts with cheers, the orbs almost blinking with excitement.
“One hundred years ago, the Lost Years took a wrong turn, in a labyrinth of walls. Walls of metal, of silicon and steel. Of calcium carbonate stripped from the shores of ancient seas, the eons of our small ancestors crushed to oblivion and then poured into rebar with a job to reach the sky. The people of the Lost Years thought the walls were inert, along with all the stuff they accumulated, the batteries and gadgets, but they were surely mistaken. You know what they say about ‘assuming’… it’s makes an ass out of you and …”
Everyone laughs; a familiar joke though not a great one.
“But back to business, as they used to say. Those walls, unhappy as they were, kept us from ourselves, from our nature, our time. And most of all, from each other!” Hoots and hollers respond. “As we await the choosing of the orbs, as SHE is awakened, and before we get a chance to say hello to our farthest friends (beings cluck excitedly), we should first welcome our guest. Our relic, our bringer of lost time, the Mayor!”
The Mayor walks out, grey, boxy, the wrist device prominent on him like an arm-cage. He waves, sheepishly. Taking in the beings in front of him, now seeing the animals and insects milling about, he sits in his discomfort, a chair placed for him beside the MAN.
The young man whispers to the woman, “I hear even their park time is allocated.”
“Oh yes, a master ruler,” she replies. “built on the blockchain.”
“BUT BEFORE THE MAYOR SPEAKS, LET’S NETWORK!” The Mayor deflates. Just wanting to get it over with.
The woman looks down at her skin mark, concerned, “I don’t think it’s strong enough yet, and who would I see, anyway? Are there VR rigs here?” Her words tumble out, the fear flickering at her. New uncertainty.
Her companion, patient once again, waves his hand over her mark, it glows more, draining his, just a bit. “It’s okay, you have some of mine now. And we don’t have to go far, you must have friends in other domes.”
She looks at him with emotional eyes, “I can’t remember.”
He nods, softly, then covering her hand, and pulling them into the network.
— — — — — —
The Mayor sits on his chair as he sees all the attendees disappear, their bodies becoming shimmer and translucent, swaying side to side like flora in the wind. “I wish I could smell better,” he thinks. Lamenting on the warm savory scents that he’s told these events give off. His stomach grumbles; the bar wasn’t not enough. He considers fabricating another but decides against it for fear of getting it stuck in his teeth. He doesn’t have a toothpick.
The board, no doubt, was waiting for an update. This wasn’t going as he had planned. For once, there shouldn’t have been animals here to vote, no one had alerted him to this matter! He suddenly doubted his abilities to deliver on his promise. and his spine became a tingly mess of emotions. “Stop it” he scolded. Yes, the walls had to come down, he admitted, but it was all too soon, too fast. He doubted that there was a story he could bring back to convince the whole lot of them to acquiesce so he just needed time. Desperately. A reprieve. A slowing down of the whole god damn process. Yes. He would make it happen.
“Excuse me?”
His head popped up to find a middle aged woman in front of him, a red scarf around her shoulders, glowing orbs swinging from it.
“We seem to be the only ones… awake.”
If you could call it that. The Mayor looked around and all the inhabitants of the dome were still tethered to the network, translucent in time.
“You came back early?”
She looked sheepish. “It was my first time.” She looked up, perplexed. ‘I thought I was going into the network, to see people I knew, but I didn’t.
His look told her that he was open to hearing the story.
“I was on the edge of this cliff peering over, stomach in my throat or whatever that saying is. And I saw this lush forest below me…”
She continued to tell the Mayor about venturing down the first slope to a small river where she encountered a young girl and then an old woman at a tiny house of time along the river who asked her poignant but painful questions, and there was this bonfire…
She shuts down in overwhelm and shakes her head.
The mayor offers, “it sound like you encountered yourself a few times at different ages? A shamanic journey of sorts before you can be fully integrated into the network.”
She looked surprised. “You know about that sort of stuff? But you — ”
“Just because I’m the Mayor doesn’t mean that I am daft to what’s going on. I am supposed to be the mayor of everyone. Which is why I’m here.”
“For those who want the walls to stay up.”
He sighs. “It’s not because they want the walls per se, they just love what the walls protect. All that they have acquired, and they think it will be all taken away when the walls are gone.“
She cocks her head, “But won’t it?”
He thinks.
“See, I’m protecting them. Their interests. It’s a gigantic responsibility.”
She considers that. “It must be. Holding on to stuff is very exhausting. Even if they only have it because of the pop-up ads.“
He crinkles his face. “You look familiar”.
She sighs, “I just came from the city.”
“Ahh yes, I knew it. What did you do?”
“Pop-up ads.”
“AND WE’RE BACK”
Bob is beside them with the microphone taking in all the beings materializing in full form from the network, beaming, some in tears, others hugging each other.
The woman gives a meek smile and a shrug to the Mayor and hurries off the stage back towards her friend, orbs in tow.
The Mayor looks after her and then glances down at his wrist contraption, the small ligaments on his neck flexing as he tightens his jaw.
“Bob, can we get this show on the road?”
Bob roars with laughter, “YES! I love that saying, where do the roads go these days? We should ask the MAN!”
He looks over at the MAN tree that blinks erratically.
“Ahhh good, the mother is confirmed. Almost here…”
The crowd erupts in cheers.
Bob then gestures to the Mayor, “let’s have you make your case.”
The Mayor cleared his throat, looking out onto the sea of faces fresh with rosy glows from the networking. So different than his ashen pallor. Go with that, he thought.
“My fellow citizens. Good to see you all in health’s keen embrace.”
The crowd doesn’t shift in their expression. He spots the young woman he had just met and she pulls the colorful shawl around her shoulders.
He pivots.
“The walls are our city’s protector, its warm embrace. Like a mother’s hug. They protect and shield from all things unknown and uncertain.
“From the truth! From their true selves!” someone screams.
The Mayor digs in, “We in the city, we do see the truth, of all that we have built, our purpose bounced back to us…. but those materials now have a say, we understand that, and we know that time is almost up, but the ‘almost’ is what is important here. Things are being rushed. Some, like you good folks, can transition faster than others. There was an agreement, yes I know, but we need an extension. We’re still not ready to tear it all down. There are many who need for the demolition to be delayed, just by a bit, just a year, maybe 10?
The crowd grumbles.
“We can do it in sections, that way they can see how the city can be reformulated, in a clear orderly way, less uncertain, no vacuums, the universe abhors them.”
Bob pipes up, “the plants always pick up the slack.”
The Mayor almost pleads, “It will be mass destruction and people will flee, fearful, you don’t want that do you?”
He waits for a moment to see if it sinks in.
“I mean, THE NOISE ALONE!”
He didn’t mean to scream.
People started chatting and naysaying around them.
“I need support, here!” he bellows. We live in the real world with jobs and transport and things that need tending to! We don’t live in your little idyllic bubble with free for all feasts!”
The room goes silent.
Bob stretches over and pats the Mayor’s back.
“Mr. Mayor you’ve made a case, though I’m not quite sure if it’s all yours.”
“But I haven’t shared the data yet.” he pleads. “The Board made it specifically.” He taps his grey contraption.
Bob smiles kindly. Then glances at the MAN. The tree now radiates a crystalline rose hued light.
“It’s time to pick ‘The Lost One’ so we can feast. It’s helpful for our bellies to be full before we make a big vote, don’t you agree?”
The Mayor wilts and nods. Quietly, “That’s what the data says.” He is indeed quite hungry. He looks at his arm contraction, having failed at printing him the proper nutrition — he perks up:
“Wait!”
A final trick up his sleeve. He holds up his arm with the contraption.
“A 20% off coupon for everyone, for anything via a pop-up ad.”
The animals, especially, start to snicker. Everyone knows that you can always get 20% off anything.
“No, I meant to say 40%… here, I’ll show you,”
He taps in a few commands and waits as the lights of the contraption’s 3D printer start shining and sounds whirring… and then stops.
He taps the contraption, then bangs it. But nothing. He looks up out at the crowd, forces a tight smile and shrugs uncomfortably, “It must need an update.”
And without another word, hangs his head and moves to his chair, dropping into it. The Board will surely fire him. He’ll lose his penthouse. It’s not like he has any family left there to take him in.
The woman looks up at the Mayor, solitary on the riser. She feels feels badly. Nostalgic even.
“They always do this,” her friend offers. “Throughout time. They promise to adjust for the good of the land but then they backtrack. I‘m just surprised it took so long for the objects to object. The objecting object. Everything is made of something from this neck of the woods, no matter. It just took some time for all to speak up, to find their voice.”
His introspective look brightens. “Are you excited?”
The woman looks around at everyone who are grasping their orbs. Some blinking erratically, others with a steady light. She pulls hers off her back and gasps. There is only one now.
“I lost two?! How can that be?”
She holds the one tenderly, feeling sad and guilty. Looking up at her friend for reassurance, but only seeing his face. She realizes and spurts:
“I forgot to ask you how your meet and greet in the network was. Did you see people?
“I saw an old bear that I used to know, and she bit my arm off.”
She gasps, covering her mouth, forgetting about her orb, looking down at his arm.
“No, it’s ok, she chewed on it for a spurt, and then gave it back. I think she made it better. At least I appreciate it more now. And then I saw some of the Aunties, I was overdue for a session. And yours?
She thinks. “It wasn’t what I had hoped. But I think I changed a bit, too.” He nods. Their orbs start flickering with light.
“I’m definitely not prepared for this.”
“The lost ones did the preparation, “ he muses, “We just need to be present.”
— — — — — —
The mycelium network works to strengthen the last tendril, unfurl the string in its hyper dimension to allow the connection. It gurgles and bubbles, the cosmic Gaia energy beneath the space time. And finally it rings true. The note, clear and strong. We’re all online, the mother is here, it shares with the whole. And the orb has been chosen.
— — — — — —
The woman now felt quite sick and cold. Maybe she was hungrier then she realized, and her blood sugar was low, maybe she was catching something, a new variant? Then a warm sensation pressed down on her arm. Her friend. gave her a reassuring look as her orb, hers, lifted from her hands and hovered in front of her, unfolding in hyper space, consuming the room.
— — — — — —
The dome was replaced by a bomb shelter. A tunnel at a station underground, rough hewn rock walls, soot that had shaken loose from cracks because of the bombings. The radio crackled Churchill’s steadfast voice. A young woman striking a similar resemblance comforted an old man. A worker, from the mines his lungs heavy with soot and whatever else. His skin was dark from time and heritage. She comforted his wheezing body and offered him her water.
“You’re an angel”, he uttered.
She just shook her head and stayed beside him as the walls shook again, people screaming and crying and clinging to something of solidity. The lights went out. More screams but the woman reached for the lantern and turned it on. The gas burning.
“So many tiny stories in this little bit of fuel” she said.
He looked surprised at her as the light flickers the edge of her eyes. “We talk about it, down in the mines, that we swim in the stories of the past. All the coal, black compressed layers of millenniums. Things happened. They are stored here for us to decipher. If we want.” He looks kindly at the oil in the lamp. “Liquid history”.
The walls shook again. They brace themselves against the metal cot. She steadies him as he sways.
“Do you need anything that I can get you. A piece of bread? I have some tinned peas?”
He shook his head, “Churchill was elected just one year ago today.”
“May 10th? It seems like another life.
The room shakes again.
“I’ve never felt so many bombs.”
The old man smells the dank air. “And fires. The fires are starting to burn.”
Her face contorts, her breath quickens. “I’m not afraid of the dark but…”
She looks around at the exists as he coughs, in a fit. Choking, almost. She is good at maintaining the calm and getting herself together, then taking his hand.
“Where are you from, where is your family?”
“Oh… they are far gone, a cousin in America, in one of those big cities with towers in the sky.”
“New York?” “Perhaps.”
“Not yet in this fray yet, are they…”
“No, but soon I feel. How can you not, when so much is at stake… the walls crumbling under weight of this war.” She dropped her head. “The world we’ve made… it’s our fault.”
It is him, this time, who takes her hands. “We built and made and grew, and it’s given the tools and knowledge to move forward and maybe even to fix. We just must weave all that we know, my dear. Knit our hearts together.’
The walls shake for once more and she lets out a sharp cry. Thin smoke starts wafting through the cracks.
A voice starts humming to soothe a child. Crystalline. Another voice joins.
“My name is Rebecca. What is yours?”
The old man smiles, “Rebecca, that is fitting. Think of me as Harold, the man in the mine with the cousin in the tower that coal built.” Then… “Churchill says that the blitz might be be over soon. We’ll see what we have to deal with. How we can rebuild.”
More join the hymn as the smoke grows heavier, the lanterns’ light not reaching far.
Harold joins the voices, shaky and coughing. Looking away from Rebecca and to the others. Love in all their eyes, from child to mother to son to man, to woman, to the books and the blankets brought for comfort. Rebecca and all join song as the walls come down.
The light extinguished by rocks, dirt and aluminum.
— — — — — —
And with a golden flash the tunnel was gone.
The woman now stands on the stage, the Mayor next to her. Thin filaments of gold light flicker under their skins and between them. They stare at each other in wonder. The resemblance between the past and present, to Rebecca and Harold, is uncanny.
Bob pulls himself together and wipes away a tear.
“I’m so glad the Mother chose that one, pulled it from the rubble. Made the trip across the pond, even. Though light speed makes a mockery of our transport.”
“Do I…” the young woman looks flummoxed. Between her place on the stage and her orb being picked.
“Do you search your roots, bring light to stories darkened by time and chaos? Of course! That is why we are all here. A tapestry of tales that weave through us all. And don’t worry the MAN will find out more info for you. Context is everything!”
But the Mayor simply looks sad, “I was just here for the vote… I didn’t know that I was to be part of the show…” He looks around, seemingly embarrassed.
Bob scoops some paint from his face and plops it on the Mayor’s nose. “We always share the spotlight. Besides, we’re all linked in one way or another!”
Bob expands his body on an exhale, ‘To The Lost Years! Let us feast!’
Everyone explodes in cheer! Amongst the revelry, the young man smiles proudly at his new friend on the stage as she touches the Mayor on his shoulder, the mark on her hand now glowing and throbbing with connection.
— — — — — —
The Mother peaks through the veil of MAN to see the feast had begun. As her network already knew, the Mayor would have to be the bearer of bad news, the walls and all else in possession were already beginning their transmutation, it was their decision after all. It would take time for some of the adjustments but in the grand plan of time they were all merely a hot second. An oscillation, a vibration that if struck hard enough could ripple across the strings. It always runs its course if urgent enough. The Mother muses as she sifts through all her children’s branches, seeing the different stories and revelry in each of the domes. And then comes back, to the great ancestor of Rebecca. One who had already begun the true journey across time and was just beginning to realize it. The Mother watches as she passes the red scarf to another.
It was time.
— — — — — —
Bob looked on as the MAN starts to blink again, the colors not of human sight. The Mother’s finale was coming and he nodded as the hum began. He marveled at the stories, the mere morsels that the tiny human brains can digest. Not the full meal. Though what was to come would give a hint. Like a prism, the whole encased in the part.
— — — — — —
The sound was so pure, so full of joy and creation and ecstasy in one moment that they all lit up, unable to do anything but dance. And forgive, and love, and see with all the senses. Animals, mycelium, bugs, the tree chemicals floating in the air — the sky bound connectors across the forests. The sound wrapped around them and coaxed out the tiny golden threads connecting them all.
And the young woman found her heart bursting with goodness, having bid farewell to the concrete and the pop-up ads for good. Only thrilled to have found a new home for the red shawl. She spun round with her now eternal friend, his face kind and knowing, the Mother’s pure sound the greatest feast she could imagine.
And they mused how not only were they able to make music, but dance to it too.
