ILLUSIONS FROM "WHEN" -- STORY IN PROGRESS ...

ILLUSIONS FROM "WHEN" - in progress

Agent One started the conversation above ground.:

"Of course this between us is only a matter of convenience."

Agent Two: "For now."

"And you have the state's resources."

"A mere suspicion. We're both elusive. And your resources? An enemy, maybe?"

"The state always speaks in terms of an enemy."

"The law, then ..."

"The state has control of judges, lawmakers, hired guns, lobbyists, influence peddlers, utilization of the underworld, you know that."

"We have secrets then to share?"

"That's what makes this alliance intriguing."

"So where did those two go?"

"We are not aligned. I don't know."

"But you're familiar with them."

"Only insofar as a brief historical encounter."

"The collapsed boardwalk then?"

"A mere demonstration, I suppose. There may have been another motive."

"We both have familiarities, then. To me it was a hallucination, an illusion. Nothing in the newspapers."

"Depends on the frame of reference, doesn't it?"

The two stopped walking, realizing they lost their bearings and an actual physical connection with each other, rapt in conversation. Both Agents ran their maps through their minds, pinpointing icons showing their locations, now several blocks apart, but converging.

Agent Two: "Our physical destination must be the convergence point."

Agent One: "I'll meet you there."

At that moment, police and fire engine sirens shot cascading shrill echoes through nearby skyscrapers. Both Agents received enforcement alerts: "The Museum of Culture!" They arrived within seconds, showed respective security badges, passed through quickly set up barricades, and stepped inside. The floors and walls looked empty. The intrusion alerts quieted and a guard pointed upward. All the works of that gallery appeared to have been spread across the ceiling, undamaged, but inaccessible beyond neon-colored wires.

"They're attached, perhaps they can't be removed, even if we get through the wires," a museum official announced. "Just this gallery."

"Those two," Agent Two assumed. Agent One agreed.

Agent Two: "Oh, it's a pun."

Agent One: "Amused?"

"I shouldn't be. They're commercially sacred artifacts."

 ...

She smiled as they sat on a park bench and watched the chaos.

“Watch, this,” She said. She nodded her head.

“I don’t believe this!” an arriving fire official shouted. “The whole thing’s a hoax!”

“No, no!” a police official said. “The stuff was on the ceiling. Ask anyone inside?”

Arguments grew louder as those who witnessed the illusion claimed what they saw was real while latecomers questioned or derided them.

“How on earth could all those artifacts be hanging from the damn ceiling one minute, then be back in place the next?” one official asked. "It is physically impossible. Come on, you can't be serious."

Afterward, the city formed a commission to investigate the occurrence. They would hire physicists to help them.

Both Agents smiled.

Agent One: “Typical of your people.”

Agent Two: “And not of yours? Are you sure yours are not there, too?”

© Wes Rehberg 2014

THESE ARE DRAFT VERSIONS ....

I probably don't need to say this -- it helps me that the clarification is specified though.
Some texts in posts have since been altered, even radically, as I weave things in a story.
Drafts, then, is what's in this blog.
Posted with trepidation.

ANOTHER EXCERPT FROM "WHEN" -- STORY IN PROGRESS

Another excerpt from "When" ...

------------------------------------

Speaker One and Speaker Two sat at a little round cafe table in the middle of a noisy chain restaurant and bar. The waitress came.

Speaker One: The special.

Speaker Two: The same.

She: Will it be the same then?

Both speakers: Of course, what else?

When She returned, She brought blackened catfish, baked potato and mixed vegetables for Speaker One and placed it on the table. In front of Speaker Two, She placed barbecued chicken wings, celery and sauce, and french fries.  Voilá, She said.

Both speakers: See? The special. The same.

The bartender, He, shouted to the other patrons to rise, circle their table, and applaud.

Speaker Two: No illusions here.

Speaker One: Thank you, all. Thank you. Enjoy our meal.

Both got up from the table and exited the restaurant.

Images of them eating remained.

What else now? He asked.

The museum, She said.

They rode the subway.

In their car, Speaker One sat at one end, Speaker Two at the other. They texted each other, oblivious to others aboard..

She intercepted the messages and displayed them on the train's windows, invisible to the two. Occasional lights in the dark subway tunnel flickered behind.

Speaker One's message: "They're on board with us."

Speaker Two's message: "How can you tell?"

Speaker One's message: "Our car is decoupled, we're coasting."

Speaker Two's message: "Wait ... we're pulling into the station."

Speaker One's message: "That means when the train pulls out, we'll be left behind."

Speaker Two's message: "No problem, this is our stop. "

Others on the car observed the interplay of messages, looked at who might be transmitting them, and headed for the doors. The doors opened. They all exited and turned to look at the car. The doors closed. The car left the station with the rest of the train.

"What the hell was that?" a subway patron asked, angered. "I got off, but this ain't my friggin' stop!"

Others turned looking for someone to blame. Speaker One and Two stepped on the escalator. Halfway up, it stopped.

Speaker One: "We'll have to walk the rest of the way."

The escalator started again.

Speaker Two: "No we won't"

The angry man shouted. "It was those two!" Others turned to look. Just then another train pulled into the station. "Forget it," one of the others said. "Here's another ride. There's always another one."

 © 2014 Wes Rehberg

SHORT EXCERPT FROM "WHEN," STORY IN PROGRESS ...

Short excerpt from "When" ... 

------------------------------

Look behind the illusion, like journalists are supposed to. These two are a layer beneath, under the myth that is perpetuated on the superficial membrane that most take for reality, the game of the frame, said the one speaker

Oh, such cynicism, said the other.

That's it. Swallow it whole. Did not the boardwalk collapse? The journalists will be told how it happened, will read the documents given to them in conspiratorial tones like precious manna that's really manure. Even though one of them may have witnessed what we had.

Oh, it was a hallucination.

How can you depart from your senses like that, said the one speaker.

She leaves the frame of the two speakers' reference and slips between them, ephemeral. He, a wisp, with her, coils a filament around their left ankles. She and he merge and sing in one voice. The sound brightens the filaments and sends a message along the outermost layer of the two speakers' skin so that it appears to be both sound in their ears and printed words to their optic nerves.

See, said the one speaker. Is that a hallucination?

I am still suspicious. Are we getting the same message? said the other.

---------------

© 2014 Wes Rehberg

FROM "WHEN," A WRITING IN PROGRESS

FROM "WHEN," IN PROGRESS ...

I could waste our time and talk about the inner sense of torque she used to remove the carriage bolts without a tool in her hand.

It was evanescent.

That is such a trite word. The whole thing collapsed.

Boardwalk and all.

It was the argument on the boardwalk along the beach.. A question of scale.

When?

When they were talking about scale.

What they expect? Of course they would have to shrink.

But then the estimate could be wrong. Too small. Too large. They're too random, careless.

They use a frame of reference.

Oh sure, them. Disrupting. Decoupling. Oblongs into wisps of steam and she shouting "integrity."

When?

At the estimated appropriateness. She never misses.

He's the randomizer though. Clever. Subtle, like an atmosphere of illicit behavior.

All of it.

---------------

© 2014 Wes Rehberg