loopinfinite

The Hexagon was flat and gigantic and it took up about a third of the sky. It was ten miles on each side, and was made of smooth, shiny metal. It was always rotating, and as it turned, so did the shadowy reflections of the countryside on its surface.

Though the Hexagon had floated in the air above the people of Lifewater for at least fifty years, none of them could see it. Sharp, however, could, and the fact that everyone else in Lifewater seemed wholly oblivious to it was driving him mad.

Sharp could remember the first time he’d seen the Hexagon: it had been just one month after his banishment from the Colony – and he could remember that, too. He’d probably always remember that. It had been traumatic.

He’d pleaded with the elders. Hell, he’d gotten down on his knees and groveled and begged. He’d told them he’d change, that he’d repent, that he’d even re-baptize himself. Anything, if they gave him a second chance.

“You’re out of second chances, Sharp,” the head elder said. He was a wizened man with gray hair, gray eyes, and gray skin. “Pack your things and leave by sundown.”

Sharp packed his things, and at sundown he walked to the Great Gate and told the gatekeeper he was ready. The gatekeeper seemed reticent, but had to comply. The head elder’s word was law; the gatekeeper knew that.

“I’m sorry, Sharp,” he said. “I’m sorry it had to turn out this way.”

“It’s not your fault, Francis,” Sharp said. (The gatekeeper’s name was Francis.) And that was how Sharp’s long exile began.

For miles and miles, Sharp trudged along the countryside with naught to keep him company but his backpack. He took the Golden Road out of the Colonylands to Marble City, that great gleaming metropolis that was the seat of the Lilyland kingdom.

He stayed at one of the inns downtown for a few days while he tried to get his life together. What would he do? He thought about finding work in Marble. Maybe he’d do heavy lifting down at the shipyards, or maybe he’d apprentice himself to a blacksmith. But no one would give him a job.

“Fucking Colonylander,” they sneered. “You’re fucking trash. Fuck off.”

Dejected, Sharp began to frequent a tavern downtown – the Dragon’s Tooth. He’d drink and sob until the wee hours of the morning.

One night, a man tapped him on the shoulder. Sharp looked up, exposing a pathetic, tear-streaked face.

“You want a job?” the man said.

“What? How. . .how’d you know about that?” Sharp was still a little drunk.

“Well, you keep moaning about how you need a job,” the man said. “You’ve been moaning about it for the past couple hours. ‘They don’t want me ’cause I’m from the Colonies’ and ‘I wish I’d been born a Lilylander’ and so on and so on, et cetera, et cetera. Listen, pal, I can give you a job.”

“Can you. . .do that?”

“Yes. It’s very simple. You just need to take a stagecoach out to this town called Lifewater. It’s at the fringes of the Lilylands. It’s kind of around the Far Continent, that area.”

“. . .And?”

“And you need to live there. For a while. You need to slip in there, act normal. Try to blend in, you know? Get the locals to trust you.”

“And then what?” Sharp said. He hiccuped and narrowed his eyes at the man. ”I don’t understand. You want me to go live in a town? You said you were giving me a job.”

“That’s the job. There’s something you need to investigate. . .”

The man explained the situation as well as he could. There was, he said, a giant Hexagon floating in the sky above Lifewater. It would, he said, be absolutely vital that Sharp figure out where the Hexagon had come from, and why.

And now, months later, Sharp was in Lifewater, looking up at the Hexagon. He’d been living in this godforsaken town for too long. His deadline was near, and every second that passed brought it nearer still. He would need results, and fast, but so far. . .nothing.

And it wasn’t for lack of trying, because he’d tried. He’d gone up and down Main Street, asking everyone questions about the Hexagon. He’d talked to the baker. He’d talked to his wife. He’d talked to the innkeeper. He’d talked to the stable master.  He’d talked to the butcher. He’d talked to the farmers. He’d talked to the children. He’d even started talking to the animals, out of desperation.

That was actually what Sharp was doing at this very moment: he was talking to a dog.

“When did you first see it?!”

He was yelling and barking at the dog as though he, Sharp, were also a dog. The dog looked puzzled.

“When?” Sharp was beginning to feel slightly deranged. “Tell me! You know what I’m talking about! I’m talking about that!”

He pointed up at the Hexagon in the sky. The dog’s eyes did not follow his finger.

“Don’t fuck with me, dog,” Sharp said. “I know you see that Hexagon. Everyone tries to deny it, but it’s up there. It’s fuckin’ up there.”

Sharp would never get anyone in Lifewater to acknowledge the Hexagon’s existence.

He eventually went back to Marble without any answers. He supposed he’d just have to own up to the truth: he had discovered nothing, and he was very sorry. He went to the meeting place (a back alley) at the agreed-upon time (sunrise), but no one was there. Sharp would never hear from his employer again.

I haven’t left my apartment once since Friday, but that doesn’t mean I’ve been totally unaware of the outer world; yesterday morning, I opened my blinds and left them like that for several hours. In real-time, I watched icicles form on the spindly black railing that lined the walkway leading up to my building. When the snow finally came, I saw the first individual flakes drift downward.

The snow fell softly at first, as if it were sheepishly aware that it was totally unwelcome and out of place in late March. But once it had started falling, it didn’t really stop: if anything, it seemed to come harder and faster as the hours crawled along. By late evening the flakes were huge and chunky, and the wind pulled them down at forty-five degree angles.

Now it’s morning, and it’s bright, and clear, and cold. Seems like there’s not a cloud in the sky. If it weren’t for the frozen snow-sheets on all the cars outside, or the disgusting gray slush all over the road, it’d be hard to believe yesterday had even happened.

I went to the grocery store today because I had no food in my apartment and I had seen the weather forecast: if it is to be believed, then six inches of snow will descend on Kansas City tomorrow.

A tentative forecast of Saturday snow had actually been kicking around for most of this past week, but I had been convinced it was a mistake. Snow in late March, I figured, was obviously impossible.

But as the week wore on, the temperature kept dropping and the forecast kept changing. Originally, it had said there would be freezing rain and sludgy quasi-snow. Then it was an inch of snow. Then two inches. Then three.

Then, today, I realized that it was thirty degrees outside, that tomorrow’s prediction was now for six full inches of impossible late-March snowfall, and that I’d have to stop living in denial.

The grocery store was more packed than I’ve ever seen it. The parking lot was nearly full; there was just one vacant shopping cart at the front of the store. The aisles were packed with people clad in winter coats.

They spoke to each other about the coming six inches of snow the way people in movies might speak about a coming alien invasion. There was talk of getting “snowed under,” of getting “trapped,” of “stocking up,” of making sure to get “enough” to last “at least one night.”

I kept my head down and tried to slip through the crowd. It didn’t take me long to do my shopping. It never does, because I live almost entirely on Honey Bunches of Oats and protein bars. It’s not healthy, but what is? We’ll all die someday no matter what we eat.

The wait in line was kind of painful. While a woman unloaded approximately three thousand separate items onto the conveyor belt in front of me, I passed the time by flipping through an issue of Glamour I’d pulled down from the magazine rack.  I hope no one noticed me doing this because it probably looked gay as hell.

When I left, the atmosphere outside was half-air, half-water, and the water half was half-drizzle, half-sleet. I guess it really is going to snow tomorrow.

Man, Scientologists really are everywhere.

The trees all over Kansas City are in bloom, and today they were dancing, too, because the wind was blowing hard. It didn’t rain, but there was a wetness in the sky. After class, I parked my car on the street rather than in the garage, and I went into my apartment and stayed there for a couple of hours.

At about seven-thirty, when the sun was going down, I went outside again and the sky was gray and pink and orange, and clouds churned and swirled, damp and heavy. Each individual cloud had its own distinct border.

I looked downhill; the sky had supersaturated the asphalt and grass and concrete. None of the colors I saw seemed normal or real. A guy jogged up the sidewalk. A couple at the end of the street unloaded boxes from a van.

It was a perfect moment and I wanted to freeze it. I knew the sun would go down totally within the next ten minutes, maybe. This moment would disappear and it would never come back again.

I seriously considered going back into my apartment and grabbing my camera and taking some pictures, but there wouldn’t have been much of a point. Cameras take pictures; they can’t take moments. And a picture’s never more than a vague approximation of its subject. And subjects are never permanent. And I guess if they somehow were – if time somehow ceased to exist – then no one would ever need a camera anyway.