Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

“Who uses their car horn at this hour?”

“I didn’t say he was overly bright.”

“Stay over, tell him you’re staying over.”

“Nah, better go, but tell mom I’ll call her tomorrow.” She looked up with just her eyes. “I adore the phone, don’t you?”

“I abhor it.”

More din.

“Love you,” she said through a hurried kiss. “Don’t forget your present,” she added as she swung backward off the window ledge then out of the window’s raindropped mise-en-scène. I debated which interpretation to apply to that statement but now even quasi-sobriety proved fleeting and without Alana as distraction, and my foot incredibly on the sofa arm, a resurgent visual tremolo threatened to overrun me and the room I was in. I realized then that while Alana and I had done our little remembrance of lost time I had overlooked relevant things happening then and there and so forgot to ask if her work was selected for that gallery opening she had bated her breath for. More importantly, I forgot to ask her if she knew what happens to the homeless when they die. Do they have funerals? What happens to their bodies?

I sank further into the sofa, still eschewing contact with the floor. Your ear hurts I thought. The twin lights became one then quickly none, leaving the room in a permeating, haunting black. Then that car door sucking sound again.

Someone once told me that whatsoever you fear most ardently young man (he was old) you will just as assuredly, in the long run, be forced to confront and in the ensuing years I had found those inchoately prophetic words to be, like most of that antediluvian nut’s declarations, almost wholly without merit. Therefore, walking on the block of my apartment, thirty-six hours after Alana split, I felt confident I would not have to engage in more social interaction and for that I could thank the cold, which had spread so unchecked it was almost visible now. It drove the Sunday afternoon people indoors, this cold did, and made me feel like a sole post-apocalyptic survivor wandering the ruins of a once-proud civilization while bathing in the unmistakable lure of unobserved conduct. It was so alluring, this quiet solitude, that I found myself slowing to a complete stop that I might fully absorb the sensation until I realized that, incredibly, my body was no different than the ones that had obeyed the Fahrenheit and fled indoors.

But before I went inside, as I climbed the steps to my place, I saw that I hadn’t really been alone after all because it was then that this old-timer suddenly materialized from in front of the doorway and walked towards me. I say materialized because even though I know I was looking straight ahead the entire time I climbed the steps, I didn’t see this grim-reaper-looking fuck until he was practically on top of me, close enough that I could see intestinal steam escaping from the top of his bony head while he put me into increasingly sharper focus. Flat, disconcerting eyes this prick had, which I tried my best to avert but couldn’t as he came closer and closer before finally resting inches from my face. I stopped trying to look away and spoke haltingly in what sounded and felt like an extraneous voice.

His response was a crookedly pointy forefinger coming up glacially then out towards my shoulder. He was trying to grab me this old-timer and only then did I realize that he wore a bare chest drained of all blood and protected by only sporadic patches of salty hair. Then he was opening and closing his mouth desperately like a grounded aquatic. His mouth quickened and quickened but all he could manage to emit was this horrible wheezing and all I could do was stand pillar-of-salt still until his hand landed on my shoulder. He squeezed my shoulder the way you might a roller-coaster harness and I found myself looking around, somehow fearful that I could be accused of wrongdoing. But he wasn’t holding himself up, he was pulling me toward him. His other hand now rising, he was trying to hug me it seemed and I saw to my surprise that I was willing to be hugged. But then I thought better of it and kind of pulled away. It was then that the I’d-decided-centenarian showed an alacrity I had not previously thought possible. For after studying my eyes intently one last time, he wheeled away from me, jumped the four steps down to the sidewalk and ran away kicking his heels up. All this not slowly either. What the?

Inside I made my way up the stairs with minimal noise to see from the slanted rectangle of light on the hall floor that Alyona’s door was open. The trick here was to get past that open door without being seen but to do so in a manner where if I was seen I could seamlessly enter the apartment as if I’d intended to do so all along. Also my face would have to portray that imaginary intent until and unless I was sure I had not been spied. So I probably looked a bit like a crab moving sideways into the doorway, where I saw Traci and walked right in to hear Alyona avoid availing himself of all available segues and say:

“Casi this is perfect. You had all that dubious Catholic schooling, don’t you think the Second Coming of Christ has already occurred but nobody noticed it?”

“Just so you know where we are,” Traci said. “I’ve had some of this useless schooling myself and I think that by definition the Second Coming is not something that people will be able to fail to notice.”

“Why not?” said Angus who took care to keep his head perfectly still and focused on the screen. “I mean the whole thing’s a joke don’t get me wrong. It’s like, no offense, some elaborate fairy tale. But the question is whether within this illusory framework the Second Coming could be missed? After all many missed it the first time.”

“You’re saying could be but Alyona’s saying it already happened and we missed it,” said Traci.

“Nonsense,” Angus said. “We don’t miss anything anymore.”

“I think we miss a lot,” said Alyona. “There’s too much noise out there and we can only take in like one thing at a time. I’m telling you, I think it happened and we were like watching the Academy Awards or maybe the preceding Barbara Walters special. It slipped through the cracks.”

“No way,” said Angus almost anticipatorily. “Such an event would have to be announced. I’ve been listening and I haven’t heard any announcement.”

“On the contrary,” said Alyona. “More than a few people have announced they were messiahs making a return visit. For example, a recent wacko claimed to represent the Second Coming, at least before he set himself and all his compound’s inhabitants ablaze. Might not he have been telling the truth?”

“No,” said Angus his head still immobile. “You can tell from his announcement.”

“What more of an announcement do you want?” said Alyona.

“Television,” Angus said with unmistakable respect.

“I don’t think Jesus would go on Television,” said Traci.

“Wrong,” Angus said. “He absolutely would and the fact that none of these pretenders effectively exploited Television is incontrovertible proof that they were not the real deal. Remember, Jesus worked at a time that predated Guttenberg’s printing press. He found himself in the midst of an oral culture. So what did he do? Did he go around passing out written pamphlets detailing what he believed to a bunch of illiterates? Of course not, he told stories. He told stories because that was the way people acquired knowledge back then. He told really interesting stories too. Parables that were compelling despite the fact they did not often engage with the truth. Parables that were likely to be remembered by people who did not, by and large, write things down. Now if Jesus is God, as many believe, then you can assume he knew what he was doing and did things in such a way as to ensure that his methods would have their greatest possible effect. What would such a person do were he to return to our modern world? Surely such a person would instantly align himself with Television, easily the greatest communication tool of all time. He couldn’t write his message then and he couldn’t write it now — not to a world of illiterates. What’s he going to do? Tell some more of those nifty stories? Don’t make me laugh. Images comprise the only effective language left and God would want to be effective. Television and its various offshoots, that’s where you’d look for him if you thought he’d come back. Believe me, Jesus will speak Television.”