Mark Falkin - The Late Bloomer

KJL: Hummm.

KGM: Because things are going to change.

KJL: Oh, I know.

KGM: This is a transition period. To remember these early days… You’re nodding, smiling, blinking.

KJL: Yeah?

KGM: Sorry. Sometimes I may lean down into this mike and say something. I’ve been doing this for so long now, talking into this, to myself. This running commentary now… Maggie thinks I’m crazy.

KJL: Hi, Maggie. You kept her. All this time. Brought her with you all the way on the road. I can’t believe it.

KGM: No. No no. The river. I kayaked down here from Lady Bird freaking Lake.

KJL: What?!

KGM: Yeah. They didn’t tell you I was coming?

KJL: They don’t talk, Kevin.

KGM: You wrote that note? How did—

KJL: What note?

KGM: Your handwriting. Look. [Velcro ripping, papers shuffling]

KJL: Um, yeah. My writing. I have no memory of that.

KGM: Is Johnny here?

KJL: Yeah. Out there on the pier with me.

KGM: Why were you all the way out there? Johnny!

KJL: They wanted me out there. I stopped asking why a long time ago. They take me wherever. I don’t struggle. They’re never mean. But they are rather insistent, just by their sheer numbers. Johnny says they won’t be like this for much longer, things are about to change. Like you said, a transition period. Shaky and weird. [pause; beach sounds] Ah! You’re here! But, wait. Hold on. You kayaked , with a dog, all the way from Austin?

KGM: Yes. Floated mostly. River’s completely flooded. Nobody manning the damn systems upriver. Tons of rain, Austin, Utopia—

KJL: You were in Utopia?

KGM: I drove out there to see if maybe I could find those guys who contacted us on the radio.

KJL: Did you?

KGM: Nope. Nobody there.

KJL: What? What’s wrong?

KGM: There was a kid there. Nate. They say anything to you?

KJL: Did Johnny say anything to me about a Nate? Huh-uh.

KGM: Look at that. Guess they’re burning whales’ blubber? [26] Evening now, by the time stamp. It is believed they sit above the beach on the sea wall.

KJL: Living on the fat-o’-the land.

KGM: They do this before?

KJL: Huh-uh.

KGM: How’d you stay warm?

KJL: Nature center.

KGM: They keep… guard?

KJL: Kind of. You know how they are. They don’t do anything like it was done before. Whenever I’d stir in the night, get up to go to the bathroom—

KGM: The water works here?

KJL: Oh hell no. No. Out in the sand.

KGM: Oh.

KJL: Yeah. So, when I stir or start wandering around they just kind of show up. The numbers increase as needed. Reminds me very much of how ranch dogs herd. They just kind of… insinuate violence. They hardly ever touch me. Their numbers just increase as I get more and more agitated.

KJL: You try to run off?

KJL: Oh yeah. I’ve tested them a few times. They won’t let it happen. They surround, urge you back, create these corridors with their bodies. So quick, it’s just… well, it’s frightening. They seem so on edge. Jumpy. Especially in the last day or so. Guess you were getting close.

KGM: Fighting some internal conflict. Yeah. I got that from Nate’s behavior.

KJL: Hmm.

KGM: Johnny, and that Simon kid on the day of, and then Nate in Utopia, they all said there was a beginning coming. I think you and I together, here, mark it, cause it.

KJL: They do seem docile now that you’re here.

KGM: All the way down, every fifty yards. Those whale fires going on into the dark.

KJL: Hmmmm. Pretty.

KGM: But you’re okay, right? No attacks of white stuff?

KJL: No more coughing either, huh-uh. In fact, after the shock of them taking me, and me losing some time there, I’ve been incredibly bored. The new world is boring. Watching them gather and hum and fish.

KGM: Fish?

KJL: Yeah. Oh man, you won’t believe it. They’ve got it down. No tools, nets, boats.

KGM: Yeah?

KJL: Yeah. They go out in teams. They’re good, I mean, like you wouldn’t believe. One thing about these kids is that there’s no hierarchy or leadership. But it’s always a complete mix of older kids and younger. Little mentorships going on. I guess the older ones tend to be stronger and faster, but the little ones hold their own.

KGM: Speaking of little ones. I haven’t seen babies. And I don’t hear any crying.

KJL: Oh, they’re there. Just they’re out in the middle of them. How they protect them, I guess. I mean, Kevin, they’re a new species, okay? I know we batted this around in Austin, but I’ve been with them for a while now and I’m telling you it’s… you and I are… I don’t even know. New rules, that’s all I know.

KGM: Are you scared?

KJL: See, that’s the thing. I’ve felt very… okay. Very pacified. It’s like I’ve been euphoric, some times more than others. Usually at dawn it’s most intense.

KGM: Me too. On the way down here they’d lay into me. Man, it’s—

KJL: —ecstasy.

KGM: Yes.

KJL: Actually, your arrival today? I knew you were here not because I saw you. I felt you.

KGM: How?

KJL: I felt normal. Old world. Gravity and heaviness, at home in my own skin. I actually settled into myself, and I don’t mean psychologically or emotionally. I mean I felt my bones tug, my pelvis and skull feel the weight again. I felt… tethered, like I wasn’t about to lift off into the sky like those sparks out there, as I have for days and days.

KGM: You’re pointing.

KJL: Huh?

KGM: I’m just telling the recorder here that you’re pointing out at the beach fires.

KJL: Ah, right.

KGM: Now you’re nodding. Nodding and pointing doesn’t work. Say something so the court reporter can hear you.

KJL: Oh, sorry. Yes, your honor. [Kodie’s voice loud and close to the microphone]

KGM: Actually, it’s dear reader.

KJL: Huh?

KGM: Who I’ve been talking to.

KJL: That’s cute. Dear reader . You’re cute.

KGM: You’re batting your eyes at me. You mock.

KJL: I’m a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

KGM: How’d you get down here?

KJL: I don’t know.

KGM: Really. You remember nothing. What do you remember?

KJL: Flashlight beams crisscrossing over all those stones. Screaming “no”.

KGM: That’s when I went out. They tackled me. So much for nonviolence.

KJL: Really though, they haven’t been. Not once since I’ve been with them.

KGM: But they won’t let you leave.

KJL: True.

KGM: And how’s that not violent? Kidnapped by kids.

KJL: You know what I mean. They haven’t physically hurt me. Fed me. Kept me warm. Let me have the run of the nature center.

KJL: A cage at the zoo.

KJL: If you look at it that way.

KGM: I do.

KJL: Don’t think I haven’t thought that too. That’s how I’ve felt at times. Serious case of Stockholm Syndrome has overtaken me. And the kid-ecstasy has certainly helped. [sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

KJL: Can you declare your love to me on that thing? Make an official record of it.

[sounds of the ocean; whales rubbing against the pier; sounds of gulls crying]

KGM: What’s happened?

KJL: [pause] It’s a reset, I think.

KGM: Clicking refresh.

KJL: Nature, God, she’s hit the reset button on humans. The whales are collateral damage.

KGM: Jespers’s Gene. Fleming’s letter. I’ve been reading Jespers’s paper. I can see why his peers didn’t review it favorably.

KJL: Yeah. His lab-slash-lair certainly raised hair on my neck. To see our names on his whiteboard. Do you really think what he was doing in some way caused this?

KGM: My Grandma Lucille once told me there’s no such thing as coincidence. In all the thinking, and talking, I’ve been doing on my way down here I’ve come to believe her. Best I can gather is Jespers was scratching the surface of something bigger than we can understand and that maybe it triggered the event that morning.