Farewell to the Illustrated Man

In the book report there was a description of a man, but it outlined him in stillness, and all around him the world had stopped, as if to pay him respect.  It was strange, not to see vividness where once there had been.  Such was the Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury.

Roadkill Cafe, Part 5

There’s a lot of names you don’t associate with people who will change your life.  I’d already met several, so I thought I knew them all already.  As usual, I was wrong.

So I met Freckles.  Freckles sat in a water tank, which was a little odd, because he was a cocker spaniel.  To say he sat in the water tank is perhaps inaccurate.  He was standing in it, so that only his paws were in the water, and that caused the fur to flush outward.  I had to laugh, but I tried to be discreet.

I didn’t ask him why he was in a water tank.  He looked miserable, more miserable than I would have imagined anyone at the Roadkill Café to look, because they all seemed to be philosophical, left their baggage behind. 

If there was one word for it, I’d say it was “closure.”  Freckles didn’t seem to know that word.  He didn’t talk to me, either, and any noise he did emit was trailed by a gurgle.  I would’ve said it was endearing, but he seemed to derive no pleasure from that, either.  I felt bad for him.

Ribsy explained that Freckles had come to them years earlier, looking just as adrift as he did now, like he was a toy that some child had abandoned, that had once been a favorite.  He had once had a family that loved him, a whole family, even the members who didn’t admit it.  That much was clear.  He himself had clung to his master, more and more keenly the older he’d gotten, until he reached this place, where things like age and death and decay don’t matter, but he’d once had many, many hearts that loved him, cherished him. 

And then he was abandoned.  Ribsy didn’t know the whole story.  No one knew the whole story.  He was the tragedy of the place.  He just stood there in his water tank, looking all abashed, but also hopeful.  He kept expecting the day when the nightmare would end.  He had a pineapple with him, but he no longer ate anything.  Plenty of patrons at the Roadkill Café ate, but not Freckles.  He’d lost his appetite.  This is sad for a dog.

Tell me more, I pleaded Ribsy.  I was heartbroken.  Who wouldn’t have been?  Please tell me there’s something good here, I begged Ribsy.

Oh, you’ll see, was all he said.  I betrayed Freckles, too, by finally turning my back on him.

Star Trek '12: 1812 AD - Trelane

Trelane was a child.  Let’s just get that out of the way.  He barely understood what he did centuries later.  It stands to reason that he didn’t understand what he was doing when he looked to Napoleon Bonaparte for a bit of inspiration.

By the time Trelane observed him, Napoleon was close to losing it all.  But that also meant that he was close to having it all, too.  For many people, Napoleon was just about one of the most dangerous men in history.  He was a conqueror of the first order.  Trelane didn’t really get that, obviously.  What he saw was a human who seemed to be capable of anything, and very few compunctions.  What kind of impression of humanity would you have if you used Napoleon as your model?

This was what Trelane learned: that it was appropriate to take what you want, and that you get what you deserve.  It’s a pity that he didn’t look on at Napoleon just a few years later, because he really did lose everything, just when it seemed like he would have everything.  In fact, Napoleon was an excellent model for someone like Trelane, a veritable infant.  This is not to judge Trelane, or to judge Napoleon, but to say that it’s appropriate that immaturity embraced without question the splendor of so ruthless a figure without truly comprehending it.  What Trelane had and what he recognized was power, and so that was why he admired Napoleon, and why he didn’t bother to question whether he understand the man at all.  He didn’t have to!

From his perch he was greatly amused by what he saw, and all men who observe from perches are, and never stop to think about their entertainment.  It’s fine to be amused, but it’s a better thing to know what amuses you, and why.  Trelane didn’t do this because it never occurred to him.  He was king of his own world, and so was Napoleon, and oh if he’d only known what would happen!

But that was not meant to be.

Roadkill Cafe, Part 4

The next animal I encountered was actually an insect.  It was a fly.  Floyd didn’t do a lot of flying around, and he was careful to explain why.

Many years ago, especially by the standards of flies, Floyd was trapped in a window.  It happens, especially to flies, so I don’t have much for an explanation, and neither did he.  Anyway, the remarkable thing was when he was discovered, he was set free.  It was a boy, and you’d expect boys, among any humans, to kill the fly, but this one didn’t.  He set Floyd free.

That wasn’t the only remarkable story Floyd had.  He also told me about a journey he took, years after his reported death, in another window, this time the back window of a car, crusted and rigid, discovered by the boy’s sister.  Floyd told me that the boy didn’t believe his sister when she taunted him about it, saying that he’d wasted his efforts, wasted his time.  The fly died anyway.  The boy refused to believe it. 

I don’t know if that somehow explains any of this, that it’s all a matter of belief, that somehow all these animals still exist at the Roadkill Café because of someone’s belief, that it’s some kind of limbo I stumbled across.  I guess it doesn’t much matter.

Floyd took a trip with that same family, buzzing along, years after his death, and this time when his existence was brought up, the boy believed and so did his sister.  Somehow the persistence of vision kept Floyd alive, and that’s as much as I can say about that.

Floyd wasn’t much of a fly, though, not when I met him.  He just sat there.  By definition, flies fly.  I guess that meant Floyd wasn’t much of a fly, but I liked him just fine.  He was humble, just like everyone else there.

And he didn’t want my pity. 

What do you expect?  If this place was some kind of limbo, then its inhabitants couldn’t really be expected to care about life the same way we do.  That much would be accurate, about how humans perceive other life-forms, no matter what they are.  We like to believe we have the monopoly on intelligent thought, that we’re so creative and so that much better than anything else.

My guess is that Floyd proved that wrong, and whether or not it was because of the boy is irrelevant.  Floyd existed before the incident in the window and he existed after it, too.  And then he decided he hated to fly.  I don’t know if that was before or after his death.

If death is something to be considered at the Roadkill Café.

Roadkill Cafe, Part 3

Most denizens of the Roadkill Café aren’t actual roadkill.  They’re sympathizers.  They’ve got more in common than most of them care to admit.  With Ribsy as my guide around the place, I learned a lot.  It was Foxy who got most of them to talk, but it was Ribsy they all respected, and Ribsy the reason I was welcome there at all.

The first one I met on the tour was Champ.  “Champ” was something of a misnomer, as I quickly learned.  Champ was no champ.  He was more like a chump.  Not that anyone there cared much, and before long, neither did I.  Champ was eager to share his story.

Like a lot of dogs, he was welcomed into the home of a pack of humans (I kept trying to impress the term “family,” but Champ didn’t want any part of that), and received all the love he could ever want.  At first.  It didn’t last, and he spent more time locked away from the humans than with them.  They built a doghouse for him, but he didn’t use it much.  Didn’t get the chance.

One of his happiest memories was being walked on a particularly crazy night, where it seemed like all the humans, and there were a lot of them, were trying to act a lot like animals.  It took me awhile, but I eventually figured him to mean Halloween.  He was walked for a stretch of this experience by someone I recognized as a younger version of myself, and so I bowed my head an apologized.  He said don’t worry about it.  Happens to everyone.

What happened, I asked him.  He said he was given up, near as he could tell in a matter of months.  Never quite came to grips with why, never really figured out humans.  He wasn’t bitter, though.  Animals don’t get bitter, even roadkill.  He missed his pack of humans.  He said he knew they still remembered him, just like he still remembered them, but he wondered which memory would last longer.  I tried to tell him that humans don’t think animals have very good memories.  He just scoffed into his bowl. 

It was at the Roadkill Café that I learned the concept of memory, discovered it to mean a lot more about devotion and a lot less to do with time.  Champ helped me with that.  I told him he was a champ to me.  He shrugged it off.  Said it didn’t matter anymore.

I asked Ribsy if they were all like that.  Probably, he replied.  He said if I really wanted to know, I’d probably ask Barky, but Barky wasn’t around.  Barky was the third member of Ribsy’s group, after himself and Foxy, but neither of them had ever seen him.  I didn’t have the heart to say I had, but I’d never talked to him.  When I brought this up, Foxy said Barky would talk to me, if I proved worthy, if I didn’t waste my time at the Roadkill Café. 

I tried to believe I wouldn’t.

Back from the Dead #12

Justin Proper’s path to the Council was a little unusual.

He was thirteen years old when he talked himself into membership in the Council.  He was able to do so because he was a genius whose intellect could not be estimated by any existing standards.  He solved Alpha Dog’s longstanding feud with an extra-dimensional being in a matter of minutes, and that effectively served as his entrance exam.  He’d already brought about peace in thirteen countries, completely unsolicited, and brought a hundred criminals to justice from throughout the United States, even though he was born and raised in England and had no formal experience on the North American continent at the time of his first investigation.

To say that his abilities were unprecedented would have been an understatement, but Proper would have been the first one to explain that to assume that anyone as young as he was at the time would only have been expected to serve in a supporting capacity not only devalued the concept of ability but also responsibility, which in many cultures expected boys to be men well before the limited standards being considered against him.  And if you asked him nicely, he might even explain that again.

Needless to say, he was a boy wonder and a full-fledged partner in the Council, and the world accepted him because they accepted the rest of the Council, and he accepted their rules because he saw a greater chance at succeeding in his long-term goals with the kind of support it provided than attempting to continue on his own.  People grow tired of individuals, not ideas.  The Council was an idea, and that fascinated Justin Proper more than anything else, its intangible quality, because that was the world he existed in, manipulating hard facts and making them malleable.  He was lucky enough that his contributions were recognized.  A champion cannot be a champion unless they are championed.  Such are the paradoxes of life.

The problem was, the more time he spent with the Council, the less effective he became.  He began hedging his instincts, to better align with the interests of the group.  He accepted compromise without questioning the ramifications.  He may have been a genius, but even he was foolish enough to trust those who said they had his best interests in mind when they sabotaged his efforts.  That’s human nature.  He was aware of it, of course, and became increasingly pragmatic.  When the time came to choose his squires, he was more careful than he’d been in years.  At fifteen he fell in love with Ellen Encanto.  She was dead by the time he was seventeen, and returned when he hit nineteen.  In terms of increments, the six years it took for him to have joined the Council and to see the rise of a rebellion against it was an eternity.  He alone was prepared to deal with it.

That was why he had selected Meme as his second squire.  Meme was his own act of rebellion, a moment of irony and subversion the Council could never have anticipated.  It was just assumed that their original impression of him would always be true, that he was in essence predictable, owing to the fact that they still thought of him as a boy, even if an extraordinary one, who could be controlled.  In fact, he had been biding his time.

Meme’s function was to assimilate the basic role of the squire, something the Witch Doctor would never be able to do, and unwittingly serve as Proper’s agent within the circle of friends he knew to exist well before the later alliance.  No matter the pressure the Council would exert, no matter the expectations, Meme could be trusted to do the expected, which was follow whatever subliminal instructions were necessary.

The rebirth of the Witch Doctor, and the careful placement of the Biker to discover it, was something Proper had counted on from the start.  He knew that she would never love him, but had used her affections to guide her in the right direction.  The Widowmaker incident was unfortunate, but had to happen.  The squires would always fight the battles for the Council, until the day something happened that would change that.

Justin Proper sat back and awaited the moment where he could return to action.

Back from the Dead #11

The world outside of any bubble can look very different.  It’s something to do with perspective.  For instance, anyone looking from the outside in had a different interpretation of the return of the Witch Doctor.  Anyone who knew what was going on had a lot more information than those participating could have appreciated, caught up in the emotion of it.

For instance, the Witch Doctor’s return was significant, in that there had been those predicting it ever since her battle with Widowmaker, when reports came back that she vowed revenge at the moment of her death.  Now, that might be hearsay and legend and nothing to do with what might have actually been said, but superheroes being a very public concern, and many corroborating statements to the effect that this indeed happened, it’s at least possible.  There was always fascination with the Witch Doctor, as there always is with the occult, from the moment of her first appearance at the side of Justin Proper.  There was a great deal of speculation as to why he’d chosen her as his squire, whether or not he was grooming her for a specific purpose.  Of course, the Council didn’t particularly care what civilians thought of them, because their approval ratings only shot up when they first came together, each of them already famous, already groomed for the spotlight, natural-born heirs to the throne of public approval, because they dictated the course of social progress.  What else do superheroes do?

Most squires were easy to interpret, so very little thought was put into them.  The Witch Doctor was different.  She said very little, so when she spoke it was a significant occasion, and she was always saying things that could be interpreted as prophecy, whether or not she actually meant it that way.  People tend to take meaning the way they want to.  She had a cult following immediately.  Even her secret identity was said to be a fabrication, and had been made common knowledge years ago, just another element of the mystique.  She was said to possess the ability to bring others back from the dead, and although this was never confirmed, it opened the door to speculation that even her own death could never be permanent.  Thus, when she said something like, “I will cause your ruin,” in a pool of her own blood, it was assumed that she meant personal retribution.

Her relationship with Justin Proper was a major part of it.  It was assumed that she must have been a family friend, perhaps even related directly to him, and since Proper himself was always something of a bafflement, it was not inconceivable that the explanation for the Witch Doctor had necessarily in some way already been deduced by him.  If Justin Proper expressed confidence in someone, that was endorsement enough.  Something about his other squire, Meme, seemed to make even logic this flimsy hold weight.  Proper was not the major force of the Council, but he was the most respected, an outsider who was a cipher, the perfect combination.

That was the sum evaluation of the Witch Doctor as well.  Her return painted her as a savior, someone who would solve every problem.  Those who wondered why even the mighty Council had never managed to establish perfect order now came to believe that the mysterious daughter of dark arts had known the secret of the universe all along.  What further proof did they need than the Witch Doctor’s own words?

The gathering of allies was seen as proof that she was transcending the previous order and making way for a new one.  Her victory over Widowmaker was seen to be assured before it ever happened, and thus no one was surprised when the first reports came in, the corpse of her assassin delivered to the doorstep of the UN, a warning that the existence of such evil would no longer be tolerated.  She was not threatening to become a tyrant so much as serving notice.  There was no change in her personality, and thus could not be said to have changed since her return.

The Council, and especially Alpha Dog, tried to denounce her, and there was an official notice that all their squires had been replaced, and that the heroes who had once served that function were disavowed, no longer sanctioned agents of the public good.  For some, that was enough.  For others, it meant nothing at all.  The Council lost a share of its authority that day, but in many ways, nothing changed, because those who believed in them kept the faith, and those who didn’t could not be said, after all, to matter.