Day 7: Flood...a what?

Assesment: Not being volunteer number one feels slightly desspointingly promising. When Cornman Ron asked what happened to the last ones, of course only learning that after, while I took hold of the approved recorder, he was shrugged off with a pat on his back. I folded a notebook in half to keep in my cargo pants for the experience journal Wolfman Patrick called necessary. That’s where it stayed, whether I gave a damn about what was happening here or not. I used previous recordings to get to where the last guy left off, sounding familiar as hell, to get a sense of what I was expecting. What curse would get me, what sacrifice would do me in? I don't know any more, and I used to like that.

I had to leave Ron on the ground level to keep him from panicking every time there were some whispered warnings followed by jostling and abrupt interruptions. Echoes chace you, he'd say. The voices in the trees picked up by a spectrograph or the change in atmospheric pressure during emotionally heated moments put him at a loss. Since none of these notes went far enough back to the beginning for his so-called context, I’ll start with Wolfman Patrick’s origins. It’ll be a brief run-through, nothing but what would make the next experiment feel grounded from his view. Also, this is why ITs insisted that I and everyone, since the new notebooks arrived weekly, keep a diary of our days, regardless of how trivial life inside the cave may be. I had been counting on as the recorder. Patrick made me walk around with him to observe the rhythm of daily conversations as my record. Remembering some much doesn't my hands write like lightning. Plus, I had been blatantly lying for the last six days. The written word is essential to these experiments, so regardless of the topic of these sections of my parodying pontificating or the fallacy that I believed before being much of a scapegoat tale, I have to, now, call this Journal entry #1.

This is where the mysticism hits the ground running. Claims of the fantastical reach all the way to New York City because of the teachings of this legend in his self-created field. The man becomes the myth in the initial discovery that shapes the way he’s seen or sought after ever sense. But he hasn’t a clue; never met a man with such a convincing mask while still fooling the self. Honesty, right? One night, while working in his office beyond his hours grading papers, a peculiar wind swung a window open behind his head. It didn’t ring to him as a threat or disruption, so he finished his sentence before checking the thump on the glass. A branch from a tall tree caught some wind and cracked against the pane. Shutting the window and locking it tight, he uttered uneventfully, “Blasted cedar sharing its growth spurt.” When he turned around, a minuscule burst of air fluffed the pages on top of a face-down Brochure. Its awful luminescent shade startled him like two close shades of blue/yellow green jostled for dominance before his eyes; no winners. While leaning closer to understand if it was settling into the slot or getting comfortable amongst his books, it seemed to breathe a the top pages open, then return shut like it never happened.

The spelling caught him first. Catastrophe sounded like Cat-hastful-ry in his head. An approximation of the English language, just enough to know, not enough if he produced a speech from it without sounding like a stutterer. He didn’t want to touch it. Managing to recover rationality, it took a lot more than he wanted to accept, and after a thorough survey of his empty office, he flung the booklet open. Pressing the fresh binding flat, he examined the glossy letters, smaller than the green-tinted boldness on the cover. It read, “No Power but Words upon the anvil.” He found himself flipping through it the rest of the night despite the eight pages when he sat or at least, that's what he remembers. It was one sheet folded twice by the morning. Transfixed on patterns in the dense text that, in its entirety, explains the ancient (DUH) but futuristic prediction from the Collective Cult of Ded Moone. Rather fitting, I thought when I saw it at the pyschward, but spelling it out like that made him feel bold. Enticed by knowledge unmeasurable, he couldn’t stop absorbing, the fixation borderline orgasmic. For instance, “At the start of death, the nineteenth hour of the night emptied by tolls for the feel of it, souls doomed on the wind—take control this night, this bitter mechanism... And other cool adventures.” I can’t get enough of this; sigh, priceless. Ads spelling out membership rules and conditions. Downloaded in a sense.

Words of every uncoordinated incident of his own beaten subconscious. The self that drives the acts he both is and isn’t a fan of, from the bowels to love spread wide, noting the putrid sensation of watching—rewatching himself stuff regrets with the bodies down to bring from the well of exhaustion well-learned lessons. This previewed the version of him that held the potential for this kind of work. Aimless study of cultures thought to previously be home to the Ded Moone, leading to their perceived and assumed cinematic deaths, now firmly starting from the origins to create new grooves in his brain to handle such untamable vigor. All this in a language he didn’t feel fit to solve. ‘Too damn bad,’ said D.C.S., according to Wolfman Patrick. He doesn’t know to whom they referrred. He spoke lines he felt were spoken to him from his monitor speakers as he read, like I’m doing, but more cynically, if that makes sense. Otherwise, I’m thinking this entity had some sass. Each shimmering atom grows into ripples, wiggling his ear lobes. Think bee-buzzing waves through fine violet silk, delivering the surround sound Dolby quality. Don’t know why it had to be violet.

Connecting with it breathed life into his field for the first time since his doctoral program seventeen years ago began under a different hypothosis. It’s no wonder he was found barefoot on the double yellow lines by the current Blue Moon, June. Not looking forward to vetting her tale. I could get some use out of Cornman Ron, shit everyone did. He’s communicating outside, somehow, to their editor I imagine. I’m a sneaky bastard, and procuring a boat with one satellite phone, a closed Ether cable network, password-protected, and one really pissed-off Cletus’ Air Boat Renter is a little above my motivations. I’ve only made land once unnoticed, and what a sweaty hike-a-thon that was getting back? He’s been looking for something substantial to justify Rolling Stons Magazine’s bloated income, Silver Edition. I don’t know how, but despite the open air, ‘it’s not spying—where the hell else are we going to change,’ quarters, Ron’s smells so much like bacon, I think Cold-man Jason, the vegetarian, is about to crack. It’s hilarious to watch them sway him from task to quick chat to busy work, as he claimed to me he was working the angles. Especially on his third lap, where I’m taking these notes by the bar—hold on…

Now, the title. It’s clear this lodging discovered and nested came with exceptional acoustics and is, physics-wise, a natural marvel phenomenon that allowed for tunneling for the Lost Gold vein of 1878. But he couldn’t get a single prospector to believe the lie with investors in a dream fading to gone. Trying to make something happen on the newly found island of dead trees-littered mini mountain and prospects, he lost his footing in a step on some mossy boulder’s with the cave-in happening just beneath his feet. What he never could’ve imagined was blowing the floor of the six-foot hole with dynamite to find a hollow, raw, cavernous space that would one day hold a jukebox in its walls. Nice place to go out with style—disappear like my birthday was a lie the whole time, trick on sttrangers that will go back to remmebering that I never existed. An island that could float atop the water like a spinning top if it weren’t propped up by the earth, as if we sat on a continental cliff too close to the mainland. Still a lake somehow. Solid in all the right places, littered with air pockets that had to be sealed before this place became livable. And I forgot, one of the sticks of dynamite revealed the clay paintings in the D.C.S. Atrium, and despite appearing light photo-realistic pictures made with chalk with all the faces and license plates blurred smooth, they aged them to be older, survived Jesus’s betrayal older, or so I’m told. Good thing he didn’t see that before the cross.

Wolfman Patrick’s study, or The Ded Moone’s Divine Peregrination, is based on the language of the former people of Louisiana, although from which era of Earth's existence can’t be determined. It’s claimed that the language you see the Brochure in is the one that speaks to the true self—the one you’re best at expressing yourself with. Nice, difficult to prove to my skeptical self. I could speak on a couple lines, but it still looks like half English, half senseless absurdity. Text that had been discovered had loose patterns that were separated from the recently dried pages Wolfman Patrick’s research team found a few days before we arrived. Given its principles, age can not play a factor, nor can it explain why the photos are lick-on tattooed polaroids on the cave wall. I say they’re connected, maybe with Ron's arrival, but I’m a Cornman, so….

The hypothesis: (Hold your breath, kids.)

Belief is not the crux, and for this reason alone, it does not feel solely like a religious endeavor. His plan, which he reluctantly let me volunteer for, is to use words placed into a specific order to change—alter the nature with the power behind this unseeable language. Take a sentence and form a connection with the vines—the earth in general and make a request. To his credit, he is humble enough to admit that he wouldn’t recognize a success if it slapped him cross the face, but had to add as an addendum that it would be obvious to someone, at least. It would take place on the 12th at 11:23 pm to coincide with the timing these sorts of lines require, according to Mead-woman Mary. I was listening to the criteria only to remember the next morning that I had partaken of their liquor supply rather than the conversation The Occurrence inspired that night. He’s set to read them, but—I’d rather quote this.

“—with these lines presumed to be that of Gaia that reviles the ears of the things rejected by evolution, we’ll ask the entity—its deity from this plain, to take on the wild side of humanity's impulses, emotional fragility, and act in a minuscule release in good faith, breathing as we do. A request made without compromise would be an act of ill repute against them. Breathe the silence on good footing. We must be ready for the lottery in their travels, upstaging our reality. Succumb. [We give, It acts, We listen, It teaches.]’ *Whispered*

“The line I’ve created is based on the perceived rules of The Brochure’s true messaging. Where commas, exclamation points, all punctuation matters, no matter how wrong to the tongue they feel, in this line that, as spoken, will not convey what I’m requesting—also a variable that makes understanding this active art form, if you will, fused to unknowable, explosive element.” So I chose were I may project such a sentence.

He has got me learning about his measuring apparatuses, readers of foreign energies, seismometer, Geiger counter, and an EVP, set up at the cave mouth, facing out and in, to see if it made a difference, any difference. Possiby like the one where Hayman Jerith and Cornman Ron just removed a dead body from the noose on the nameless island across the marsh hours ago. Patrick called it a target, if there could be such a reqests. He noticed in the past Occurrences of giving The Brochure to guests who showed higher or alternative brain functions were stimulated by the lines, as they did for Hareman Keith, Shawna’s brother. That could mean I could be the indicator if nature says no. She apologized the last time she saw me and rushed off, and I can’t imagine why she’s been so quiet.

I read the copy she gave me in a few restaurant shitters, so as much as I didn’t care, some of this rang bonkers with the better explanation, but Hare-man Kieth’s was at a mall in a Savannah Mall, when he took a look. Location is a factor as much as emotional state. He was mainly avoiding the over-hyped kiosk vendors at the precipice of a panic attack. After a particularly peculiar plume of spirited cherry vape, his choking became overwhelmingly authentic and put him on his knees. One hand was around his throat, and the other, fanning the horizontal mushroom clouds, it did nothing until The Brochure was in his hand. Could it have attatched to his instinctual properties, because why would any one think a brochure that looks like a great time if you like mini golf in Amsterdam. Beyond not seeing anyone who could’ve given it, the cover calmed him, having not disturbed his wave rhythm. It reads in a circle around the image of an oblong thing, ‘behave to save as we do. Lifted vail, undo what makes us frail. Take on Ded Moone.’ Apparently, he strolled cautiously into another dimension, but what he did, which I only heard secondhand, affected his home violently. I haven’t seen him to get details and found only some of his pages. But he had no idea where he got the car or the jar of thumbs.

They let Cornman Ron return with Harvestman Jerith to give June and me time to start the second generator to run the exterior fog lights and reader designed by Wolfman Patrick and built by Mead-woman Mary and Storm-man Derek Winters. Picks up audio frequencies of the ambient, and shit no one can hear or understand, yet it’s always there. Plenty of frequencies, light, sound, audio, etc., exist beyond our sense's expertise thus the plan is to bring us to them. Didn’t care at the time. At 11:03 on the dot, Patrick would stand on the shelf built along the drop to the ground level and test them on the swamp. A few practice reads to warm up to when ambient frequencies are, ummm—right?

Test 17, the Line: “Negative inflation puts the air flow below in control of the narrative.”

Ron stayed in the boat by the pier with a dish with head phones attatched. Given the times I’ve seen him slink off during briefings or updates in the plans, he was in position to break off amid their equipment breakdown, one he felt would happen before they saw their result. Shawna, who scared the hell out of me when she snuck up behind me, came solemnly with a pull for me to walk with her. “Don’t stay—it—”

“What do you mean? Hey, where ya going?”

“I’m sorry—not like this.” She walked back to her bunk, fighting back a lump in her throat, whispering under her breath, “Not this way—for them.”

Everyone took their places behind the chest-high wall, if they fit, side by side, on the shelf. I chose to sit on top of the wall where I could sit and annotate with elbow room. A mist skimmed atop the water with a blue tint, signifying the moon's approval, wherever it sat full, trying to get a reflection for the makeup routine before the night was out. The chill became vengeful, spitefully bitter that I’d dare wear a thin button-up half-buttoned this close to the equator. I couldn’t believe how dry my skin de-warped into, hitting a level of flaky, itchy skin in ten minutes. i must have gotton really cold, but whe? I guess that means it’s time. Shockingly, this was after June read the braille in my goose-bumped forearm. How hard would it have been to provide an explanation for that, really?

Following read #1: 11:03

A coincidental wind rattled branches; none of the devices made a peep if you don’t count the steady, all-normal-here humming. I kind of picture being convinced to test the low alligator numbers in this area to excite the moon while I spell my name backward. Who would they get to hold me under? Should I have them knock me out? I believe that everyone who isn’t ‘in the know,’ June saw the sarcasm in my devotion. It’s the only way I can hold up the act with less fatigue, and she knows it. She whispered something to Patrick that translated, somehow, to him asking me if I was ready.

Following read #2: 11:13

I didn’t notice, but a half-mini-earthquake was picked up. Cornman Ron may have picked up a ripple pop against the dinghy. Less wind this time, but this prompted June to whip out a pair of binoculars. The alarm to the sound device thing matched what we couldn’t hear in close proximity, sharing a slight high-pitched buzz, like an electric drill on a bee’s ass with the stinger trigger tapped down. Cornman Ron yelled from the boat, asking if he needed to change his position. Cynically said, June’s lack of hesitation in saying he’s fine had to be followed by a hastily shouted, ‘unless you’re not comfortable,’ or else this would look like a trap, even to the Rolling Stones award-winning investigative journalist. Something Ron had been watching for since the start of the week.

“Why don’t you give it a read?” Wolfman Patrick looked at me when he spoke. I was so sure he meant to look at Bluemoon June that I kept writing until it became a stare.

“Why might I do that?” I asked.

“I believe I’ve spoken enough. Voices are not excluded from possible variables. Consider it a fresh face entry gift.”

“I did volunteer.” Damn it. “Anything I should do or—”

“Make it yours.”

Following read #3: 11:23, "Negative inflation, puts airflow in control of the narrative….." I said.

And instantly continued, “Almost an imperative if you think about it, so….. Then, again, it’s all confusion to me in the unknown sacrilege.”

I think I put enough of a pause or a gap between his line and my slight addiction to owning the last word. I wonder if it was referring to the mountain cove, succumbing to high tide; this place seems to be taunting Mother Nature for kicks. Seeing my breath was what I was concerned with when I noticed that the buzzing went from whining to a droning tone, jutting into deeper octaves that I can’t describe in any other way. It fucking hurt. Something was running cotton strands, tickling down to my earlobes from the vibrations like teeth grinding aluminum foil. I didn’t care what was happening that put them in this hive of chatter, which had nothing to do with being me deaf at the moment for them. All I could do was pick up on what they were frantically pointing at. I got the hint. Ron was gone. I guess he missed it.

A mist of blood, then a splash with the fog arriving just in time to declare nothing to see here. “Ron! You hear me? Shit, does anyone!” Following the scientists’ eyesight line, I caught the rippling disappearing out of sight with all their attention focused at both us. I stepped closer to the waterline, except the ground went all Full Tilt, and I inadvertently threw myself backward on the shelf. Blue Moon June helped me up instantly, but like I fell like in a dream but it wasn't important so the act had a beginning and no end but a view of the next action. I think she was saying, ‘Get up, you need to feed—’ but I was climbing back over the wall regardless. The first thing I saw was the flesh from the face and arm of Ron at the surface as if the fog’s movement was coordinated with the splashing spectical. Barely the flailing he was attempting to display; too quick to react before the submregence was off the cliff. Another splash in the mist; no screams faded beyond what the last known position should suggest. Before that last well-placed cloud, I swear a tree root rounded off the top of the water and then slipped from the air to the muck live a sentient vein on the loose. I went down to the edge. “That goddamn noise—kill it!” The Voice said. they were more concerned by the sound than I was, I get that now. Further and further, more water cleared up ahead across the gap from us and the nameless island. Remnants of the boat floated by my feet, stilling rocking in place. The drone faded into the dwindling excitement of the moment's success, reluctantly if you include me checking frantically for tenitus. I didn’t need to hear me. I picked up a rock and threw it behind me. Not sure what I hit, but the daunting pressure bloodying my eyes stopped. “Finally that fucking nois--Ron! Ron, are you there? Splash, scream, anything!”

Thinning mist brought the drone back down to hearing voices mumbling under the readers' reading. I recognized none of them, still oozing and rumbling the drum as I rushed back ooff the peir. I hope they don’t expect to have those numbers they were struggling with. Jeez, I hit my head or something, I felt the knot. At the sight of the pier still bouncing on bumps in the murky slosh, I yelled, “Why didn't you turn that fucking droning off!” I know they returned the airboat, and remembering how early this morning they did that startled me. “Come back,” Snowwoman Shawna said, heading down the stairs. She stayed at the base of the steps. “Don’t go out there.”

“Sir, it’s important he see,” Wolfman Patrick said.

On the shelf, he tried to teach me the measurements to explain the decibels’ meaning, fawning over the squiggly lines still pulsing heavily on the rolling page. He wasn’t the only one, but it ended with Blue Moon June, binoculars still locked, gazing in some kind of anticipation. “It’ll be clear soon.”

I joined Snowwoman Shawna to get a bead on her fluttering heart and teary-eyes. The hug she forced into my chest came with a buried apology; then, when June clutched my arm, she said, “Don’t go. I should’ve never—”

“You should see how it worked out. Quite an accomplishment,” Blue Moon June said, with her pull being way stronger from the core of me, coming with a one-handed Indian burn to bring me to where i dropped my journal. She seems so calm. All are but her more than most.

The binoculars were handed to me. Snowwoman Shawna’s eyes widened, then I looked where Blue Moon June pointed. I scanned the island, and when the twitching foot or what looked like that highly recognizable image despite having never seen it live, fresh, I pulled them down. “What the—” I lined up again as the branch’s bouncing moment came to a stand still, slow swing. Shit, I wouldn’t have believed her anyway.

“You have helped me prove the existence of linguistically malleable nature through the conductivity of sentences. Communicating with reality directly, and it’s showing responses in real-time. These beings of The Brochure, the Ded Moone people, bridged that gap. I’m astonished, aren’t you?!” Wolfman Patrick shouted.

“17—test 17.” I handed June the binoculars. “Why did you want me to say that? I caught that last minute change up.”

“Not the first question I was expecting. You were right; the words were absurd, just your lines as I wrote them,” Patrick said. “Well, except for your contribution. The final edition of a display created the atmosphere to live. all you're words, really.”

“Which part?”

“Go ahead; show him,” he said to Blue Moon June.

“Okay, but FYI, his legs aren’t there anymore.”

I started at the marked page in the folded composition notebook i thought had been given as a research tool. I hadn't looked that hard. I’ll admit, it took three pages before the familiarities sank my heart in my stomach acid and moved on. Ron’s words, mine, and everything they all were saying while I was deaf from my perspective, preemptively written; i don't know when. The only words missing were after my read-through. “How—how?”

“Congrats, Iceman Nielson,” Blue Moon June said. “Most visceral response yet. Gonna get a Blood out of you yet.”

“I’m sorry,” Snowwoman Shawna cried back from the third level, heading inside.

“What happened to Hare-man Kieth?” the last used page says I asked.

Excerpt from Growing-woman Gweneth Lightfoot.

...I’m supposed to be an environmentalist. I wanted to see what THIS was capable of after I saw what I saw. No one can warn like they think evevn when giving up on the alibi, and as a punishment for not reading between their lines, my time here is destiny’s sour spring. Once, I would’ve called its message from a real living being, god like the life form which we all can’t live without. Then I met Iceman Neilson.

That’s right, Cornman to Iceman in a single week. I hate that I agreed because what he can do is real, connections speak for themsleves. There’s a chance he’s built for this. Why I’m doubting his sanity comes down to his dreams, the Nightmare that drove him here. After the detail dump Coldman Jason is sure happened him in D.C.S. Atrium, Iceman’s demeanor doesn’t add up. Might as well be aloof, toeing the line between dedicated and ulterior motives. And he didn’t care about Ron, just the act. Some team if they were, him willing to serve Ron up like that. He may be sincere in not knowing, but the stuff he sees, what drives him mad behind a veil of monotoned disinterest, can’t continue if he’s going to survive this, here, now. His attempts at control wouldn't last much longer alone...

Except from Harvest Woman April Jeminez

--so, no, I don’t feel good about the new recruits(s). That quiet one. He’s barely here. Whoever is controlling his eyes is getting a head full of this place. Maybe his version of La La Land sense he looking for the out with a bang. I felt so much like smacking him alive while I talked. "Jeez, I know it’s no fun here, but are you kidding? the ceiling alone...” I finally clapped, and he remembered I was there. Get this shit, thought he was dazed but he recited the last five minutes of health and safety briefing, even the little jokes—even the parts I forgot. Word for word, interruptions, could point to the spelling in my writing I ignored since I've known them a while and could recite around it. It could be hyperthymesia, and given the nightmare he describes, it confirms a theory I considered a few years earlier. Dreams live vividly, he can't block out a single one. His breaks make mores sense, but how he's lasted doens't. He talks like it’s common, maybe daily.

I asked where he’s from, but it’s like, as far as he can go back is the hospital with Snowwoman Shawna. He hides it well enough without coming off too cagey, but it’s not in his journal yet. Maybe I’ll get lucky. I uh, didn’t know what to tell him about Kieth. Stone facing will only get him so far here—What he thinks he’s hiding, it's only in use...