The Memory Garden

Chapter 3B by William S Four cups of luke-warm coffee and a stale bagel brought Lemon to a feeling of almost human. Well as human as he could be what with all the imbedded sorcery and rogue DNA running though his system. It was cold in the burnt out warehouse he was using as a communications point. Even the rats were wearing sweaters and toques. His breath came in quick wisps of frost. Shivers ran the length of his spin, more from anticipation then the cold."I should dress." Years spent alone in his prison cell had given him the habit of talking allowed to ease the pain of loneliness. "It's been awhile I don't know the local styles, the modern styles, I'm going to look silly… fuck'm if I do. I'll make it a new style." With a quick smile he tapped his twin pinky rings together and reached into a shadow to withdraw a beaver fur felt top hat. He thought a second about whether to wear it or not then changed his mind. A quick shake of his hand and the felt rearranged itself to the form and colour of a short brimmed brown fedora. "This will do, a tad cliqued even back then, but handsome nonetheless" Reaching shoulder deep into the depths of the hat he pulled forth a beige suit and red necktie to go with the hat. No mirror was around to help him see if everything was in place. Never trust the mirrors. The eyes looking back are never yours. Running a silver comb though his iron gray hair he hoped it was settling into a respectable coif. From the pants pocket he withdrew a military style watch done in etched chrome. There were no hands on its analog face, a quick glance was enough to prompt his mind into giving him the time. White had said the war was going badly, he didn't have moments to spare.Once dressed and feeling better for it, well at least warmer, Matthew Lemon set about his work."This time out I shall do things right. Back up is what's in order." He moved to find his phone. His right foot impacted something on the floor sending it rolling about in circles. It was a bottle of black Indian ink for calligraphers. "Whoops, mustn't forget that. With a flourish he scooped it up and dropped it into the safe place within his fedora.The receiver of an old black Bakelite rotary dial phone with frayed cord dangling unattached to anything and useless in most peoples eyes sat pride of place on the heap of blankets that served as his bed these last few days as he prepared the workings and rights of the communications circle to speak with his boss, his master. His shoes squeaked as he went to retrieve it. Cradled in his hands it felt warm and loving, like a good well-maintained weapon should."I would like to speak with Walsingham." The cord of the receiver sparked an ozone fart and twitched like a cat's tail in heat."Good morning" The voice on the line was dead and decayed, a fossil long buried but still kicking."No it's not.""If you insist Mr. Lemon. How may we be of service to you?""I need some information.""Doesn't everyone? That's why were here.""I need to know where to find Zero.""The place, number, time, concept or person?""The person.""Male, female, or somewhere in between?""Male… I think?""You think?""I've never met Zero personally, just hired him to do some killing.""Ah that one. Wait." The line that was never live went dead. The cord stopped it's twitching."We will contact you when we know where you can find Zero.""This phone isn't going to be soon…""That's okay. We will find you that's what we do.""Fine." He threw the receiver for all he was worth to smash, crack and shatter against the cement floor."I should clean this place up before I go." Jerry cans of gasoline and turpentine for flavoring stood about the warehouse, he began tipping them over with a sad tap dance of destruction. His shoes still squeaked. Taking care to thoroughly drench down the communications circle, it's ancillary workings, his bedding, and a few security glyphs He lit a match with his teeth, tossed the flaming stick and pirouetted out the loading bay doors. A loud cough of flame and smoke applauded him into the creeping dawn of his brand new life.  Libraries are funny places if you really look at them, but most people don't and a joke never works if you have to explain it to them. Matthew practically skipped up the gray stone steps leading to the glass front doors. A beggar in grimy overcoat and crushed beliefs shambled his way trough them."I only wanted to take a piss in dignity…" his breath smelt of Lysol and refuse. Matthew palmed a twenty into one of the man's pocket with a smile. The two never spoke, that wasn't needed. Bad Karma must be bought off without fanfare. The library smelt of mildewing knowledge and thoughts past their prime. Lemon hummed nothings softly to himself as he wandered about the shelves and stacks tapping the spines of forgettable books as he searched past them. People in the form of massed individuality paid him no attention, he was just one more bibliophile lost in his own selfish lust. Lemon came upon what seemed a little used corner of the reference section. He inhaled deeply. Of all the things he missed in his incarceration it was the printed word's absence that hurt the most. Like razor blades to the flesh between his toes. With hands now trembling in greed to take down each and every book to devour in glee he quickened his search. Finally in it's proper place as dictated by numerology and the dewy decimal system he found the slim red volume he'd been looking for. He withdrew it tenderly, lovingly. He sniffed the creaked, dry leather of its cover, he caressed as lover, opened it to the correct page. Counted to ten twice with a pregnant breath between, sang quietly so as not to disturb the other patrons the secret lyrics of a string quartet that had no words and licked the page. He was wrenched sideways to

Chapter 3A by William S  Robert's Last Stand is a speck of arrow shaped garnet awash with the turbulent waters of theBubbling
Sea. It served no purpose in the great mechanism of the world. It was a hazard, an obstacle to navigation, an after thought of the artist who had molded the world. Few of the Pinnacle paid it any attention. Why should they? It existed in the background of their existence, a chunk of nothing protruding into the waters of the harbour but not into their lives. This is a pity for housed within the rock of no consequence was a room of splendour and seven beings. A room no one had seen in over a century.It was cold in there. A creeping sort of cold that climbs into you bones and pushes your soul ever so slightly off center. Dust bunnies played care free in the corners. Cobwebs and flecks of years old ash fluttered about in the chromatic daylight filtered through the rose vault, stained glass skylight dome above. Scenes of birth and death cut of glass coloring the room below.On the floor of matching crimson and white marble tiles, one foot by one foot each, he sat. Four feet by four feet by six feet clad in gun metal gray ceramic with a seven spay painted in the upper right corner of his face the one who thinks nothing but coulisses and reports sat unmoving as always at the center of his companions, three in a row to the left, three in a row to the right. Since he had no thoughts of his own to share, he was watching old war movies and counting the number of time the soldiers fired their guns beyond the number of rounds that the particular weapons could fire before reloading. He seemed happy in an anal sort of way. Black shapes reminiscent of digital parodies of animal shadows scurried about flat to the floor connecting him to his friends, their chosen form of information sharing.First went a cheetah to the head of the row on the left. Here was the six-foot diameter sphere with its polished chrome surface reflecting the world around it. He who thinks only in circles looked like it was on the verge of rolling to somewhere else. Not that it ever has or ever will. A vicious argument was being had within him self about logic constructs and why emotions don't make them work, or was it emotional constructs and the logic they create? The cheetah received its news and moved on quickly down the line.The various hues of blue painted, four foot based concrete pyramid spiking at six feet who thought from the ground up but never sees the top was quietly drawing in its mind a cathedral dedicated to a love never confessed. Such an epic poem it would write once the designs were done and the proper paper selected to write upon. Naturally a pen and color of ink would also have to be selected and of course what style of poem, and, and… the list goes on. Foundations to be laid, thoughts to be constructed. The cheetah moved on.Last in the row a fleshy pink torus, so reminiscent of a donut burped. He who thinks other's thoughts are his own was reliving somebody else's meal as being the tastiest one it had had so far today. The cheetah paused here for such a profundity of information was to be uploaded that a rest was needed. A shaggy electric bear ambelled in profile across the floor to the second row of companions. Picking up where the cheetah left off.The bear bypassed the six-foot firry red plastic corkscrew spire of He who thank to quickly, who currently shut down and snoring like a bumble bee on speed. He slept much these years having long though its needed thoughts and stored them away for future perusal, editing, updating and gloating over.The evergreen snowflake who ponders thoughts distant and near but never in between was doing just that and had nothing to share with the bear and the others.Last the ebony two-foot radius; six-foot tall latex cylinder who thought thoughts only about itself and occasionally shared them was unspeakably bored for none of the others were talking about it. It gave the bear just enough time to up load it's displeasure with this turn of events and send it on its way back to he who thinks nothing but coulisses and reports when the bear failed to slather enough attention on it. A pack of field mice sent by the snowflake to shut the cylinder up was running circle aground it taunting and calling names of vulgar complexity, all of which went over the cylinders preverbal head or bounced of its hair gel shellacked sides.Just out of a grown man's arms reach before he who thinks nothing but coulisses and reports on a woven rag carpet of no permanent color or shape stood a chair, of well-padded red wine coloured crushed velvet upholstering on a cherry wood body carved in an angry, intense swirling and slashing pattern. Waves of emotion chaotic in their number and intensity radiated from it. Currently no one sat in the chair but he who thinks nothing, just coulisses and reports knew this would change. Or maybe one of the others knew this and reminded him. The bear having returned and down loaded a bunch of thoughts.Beyond his six friends were the eight walls of their world. Each proportionally measured by the golden means against his own dimensions. Each, save one a blank expanse of blond pinewood, none with a blemish on them, no knots, scars or bumps. Before them on white marble Doric crowned and footed pedestals sat seven phones. Each was identical to the others, long wood poles, painted with black acrylic and brass rotary dials over mother of pearl faces.
Bell shaped receivers attached with co-axial cabling threatening to turn to dust, hung off the side of them from brass fork handles.No phone or pedestal stood before the eighth wall. Here resided in moldings of wood to match the walls was a set of double doors, each 4 feet wide, seven feet tall. No hinges or knobs were visible. How the doors were to be opened was a mystery to the seven as none had ever seen it done.Such was the world of the seven. Since before time and the angel construction workers laid down the first of the great artists blue prints they had been here. Time was not a form of measurement that had any hold on them. The phone known as Benjamin rang, then the chair creaked as one of the creatures they must obey once more folded his turquoise, silk robed form into its warm embrace and relaxed. The carpet shifted color to match irises hidden behind black threat sewn shut eye lids. Perfect white teeth flashed to shine past lips painted ruby red. "I have a task for you.""You? You have a task for us?" He who thinks nothing but coulisses and reports spoke with intended disbelief loaned from the cylinder who thought thoughts only about itself. Its voice the grating screech of metal on metal. A frown creased the face of the creature in the chair."We, the Consortium of Truth have a task for you.""That is better we will listen now." Flat animals flashed about linking and awakening them all. A warmth of desire passed through them. Each in turned pulled on the power of the Pinnacle and strained to hear what task it was they were to perform.He who thinks too quickly thought its new thoughts, checked and compared them to old thoughts and having completed them thought the task that had yet to be told to them was finished and so shut down. The one who thinks from the ground up began to formulate plans for an approach to the task without even knowing what the task was. He who thinks others thoughts as his own quoted twenty different sources on how to complete a task and then waited for the others to congratulate him on his cleverness for telling them something most already knew. They let him preen in silence. The one who ponders thoughts distant and near but never in between launched into a dissertation on what it means to complete the task, even though they still had not been told what it was nor had they done it. The one who thinks his thoughts only about himself ask himself what would he do to complete the task and then answered but did not share the answer with the others. The field mice still taunted.The one who thinks in circles chose to start an argument with the one who thinks others thoughts are his own about the plans the one who thinks from the ground up was laying out that the one who thinks others thoughts are his own had just claimed as his own.The one who thinks nothing but collates and reports spoke for the others. "What task is it we can do for the Consortium?"The creature in the chair smiled for he knew he would be rewarded for completing his own task of asking the august body before him to work for the Consortium. He hoped his rewarded death would be slow."There are two men, possibly more in the future that I wish you to keep an eye on.""Physically?""No, figuratively. I think they might suspect that you are up to something if you place an actual eye on them."The creature chuckled at his own joke at the expense of the literal nature of he who thinks nothing just collates and report's naïveté. "We can do this. For how long?""Until told to stop.""We will do this.""You will also report, when prompted to, all that you have seen of them.""We will do this.""Of course you will, you always do." A smile played across ruby lips."Who are these men?""One is a former prisoner just released, the other is a half breed longing to escape. You know them?""We do, we know all.""Of course you do. That's why we keep you." Another phone rang and the creature was gone.It was still cold in the room. A creeping sort of cold that climbs into you bones and pushes your soul ever so slightly off center, but slowly the cold was lifting. God's were at work and when that happens things have a tendency to heat up.