The Belt

I find myself daydreaming about somethings.

For example, I think of the fish I can find down by the creek. That easy stream. Half rotting shed near the embankment. A lot of mud when it rains. But you can still find some easy pickings if you look closely.

Ducks. Ducks in a line. All the time this time of year. Little babies follow their mother. I saw one get lost one time. I followed it as it yelled out for help. It was alone when I picked it up and took it back home. One day, I never saw it again.

Little pebbles I like to throw. Disruptions, I see those large repeating circles breaking the water. Waves from below are saying hi to me, asking why I'm so lonely. They can see through me, they can tell I don't want to be here by choice.

Maybe I got lost one time and ended up here. In this forest. Sleeping in a rotting shed. It's my only home. Was that always true?

No, I remember pressed shirts and shined shoes. That diesel smell and mechanical honks. Something about those toxic fumes flickering in the sun. Made me want to throw up. Couldn't clean the grime off my lungs.

But when did I get here? I don't know for sure. I like to think I was drifting down the creek until it got too small and too shallow. I don't follow it anymore, but I don't feel like following it the other way back for some reason either. So I act like this is where I'm supposed to be.

After all, I ended up here. Does it matter why I ran away? It's not important. Right now, like the sun shining through the leaves. The bugs are crawling in the dirt. The grass and trees are swaying. At night, I can see the fireflies light up, and cozy around. Little beeps of orange and yellow. I'd like to grab some if I could. Like that duckling. I hope it's ok.

When I go to sleep, I try to ignore those strange sounds. They're not good for the conscious, knowing something could be watching me. Anxiety. Oh, it goes away by daylight. But it comes back each night. I find myself each morning having burrowed deeper into the ground, hiding in a bigger hole each time. Something about that comforted me. My bed was getting hollower and I felt safer.

Except, something was still missing. Gnawing at me like some ghost I was unaware of. Standing on my back and compressing my posture. A memory felt like an anagram. Things were misplaced or malplaced. Like someone had come through and rearranged everything. Like it all fell apart into one mess, and they were too lazy to sort it out. Bits here, bits there. All in all, a disorganized picture of puzzle pieces forced together.

Like I said, it's not worth thinking about. I don't. Not really. Not anymore.

Nope. No, sir. Not me.

"How would you like to pay?"

She asks us. We accept the transfer. The mental link is formed, and the financial platter served through our portals. The protocol handshake succeeds. Public keys and private keys meet and converge. There's some length to this process to be left at the bureaus of banks. There, they'll be reassessed and credited accordingly along the ledger. I hear it's about 300 million miles long by now.

"Credit."

It's not my money. But it will be one day. We can feel the number clicking as the binary interchange exchanges the serials. Secret keys and VIPs. Response 200. It's done, and the item is ours. The data comes back and we look at each other again.

"Thank you, come again."

She makes a smile at us. We don't smile back. We didn't notice. Talking amongst ourselves through overlapping hypertext and semantic recontextualizations. We need some response to avoid suspicion. Eventually, we agree on something.

"Thank you."

It's simple, it's enough to reach consensus. It'll have to do. We leave with our item.

Hairspray. Adds that volume to her curly brown hair. Extra hold. Enough to last the broadcast. Today's outfit was a crimson suit.

"Earlier today, we received reports of a suspected robbery at the Museum of Eschatological Sciences. Two security guards were found tied up, and several artefacts were reported missing. A cryptic note was also left at the scene. Its patterns and diagrams seem unique and not from any known existing culture or symbology. The director of the museum had this to say."

The director. Plump man. Maybe past his fifties. A lot of his colleagues look like him.

"We're worried about what sort of precedent this sets. To think, our careful studies were subject to such a terrible attack. There is no way to replace any of our artefacts. You just cannot. Once things are gone, they're gone. It's the fragility that worries us. We've grown attached to taking care of these things, but now they've been violently taken away from us. I guess we just have to accept it."

"Did you not anticipate such an event?"

"I mean, of course, the end is inevitable, and we expect it to come eventually. But that doesn't mean we can't feel disappointed when it does."

Is your milk tasting funny?

Have you been a victim of Moloko milk products?

Maybe you've been recently diagnosed with a neuromuscular degenerative disease?

If any of this feels true to you, then call us right away. You might be entitled to some form of settlement.

My name is Mikael Iribarren Liu Kaspernen. I specialize in legal cases based around the illicit and extraregulatory usage of organic mechanization. I believe Moloko's milk industries have bioreduced our beloved cows to the point that they are de-sensed flesh forms.

While I understand the dairy crisis has certainly forced us into difficulty with our dwindling bovine population. But I must urge you, think of your humanity. Are we going to accept Moloko's purely utilitarian cows? Can we even call them cows anymore? Do you really trust that sort of affront to God as being a lactate producer?

We are mammals and therefore under the mammalian rights invested to all of us, we deserve our milk to come from true mammaries.

Not these flesh forms and their "ooze". So call now if Moloko has affected you. If you're just passionate like I am for the good old days of dairy, then please donate as well to our class-action litigation.

Thank you once again.

This is a message by Mikael Iribarren Liu Kaspernen of Mikael Iribarren Liu Kaspernen and Associates. Sponsored in part by, the Citric Liquids Pact and Real Dairy Farmers of New Wisconsin.

"Wait."

"WAIT! GODDAMIT, JUST WAIT, WILL YOU?"

"Thank you."

He clears his throat and spits out a glob of phlegm off camera. Viewers paying attention would've caught that green yellow glob fly out of his mouth. Disgusting. But this is what they pay for.

"Now. NOW!"

He clears his throat again. Unbelievable, really. He's basically run out of ideas and is just killing time.

"I'm just spit balling here. I do this all the time. Ever since my mother told me I couldn't be an astronaut and visit the moon. I've never been to the moon. I think it would be a grand time to be able to bask in the sea of tranquillity."

There's this collective groan that can be heard. It echoes around. You can hear it clearly coming out of the television.

"Television? What television? We're LIVE, baby. I don't televise anything. I tele-live it out. Right here in front of you. RAW. Pure raw energy. That's the stuff and I can't get enough of it, clearly."

He wishes you don't change the channel.

"Please don't leave me. Truth is I don't have much going on for me right now. I've hit a bit of a rut and it's been keeping me down. Life isn't easy for people like me. I think I could manage if you just keep chilling around here. I sorta need you to keep going. That's not abusive, that's dependency. I need you, I really do. If you stop, if you leave... I'm not sure what would happen to me. Part of me feels my existence is so discrete. Once you run out of things to say or read, then it's really the end I guess."

Click.

The punch connects. I feel the blood vessels in my cheek burst open as they cut through my teeth. Something feels wrong and loose in my mouth. I spit out a puddle of blood, and out comes my snagged tooth in several pieces. Some sort of hole can be felt deep in my jaw.

The lights flash around as my head dazes. My feet feel light as a feather. I can hover just right here for a bit and take a deserving nap. I need one at this point. How my head hurts.

Rough neck, rubber neck. Tire truck and fire brick and concrete. The ground is a hard firm mess of which I land on headfirst. I go down and I black out.

"Get the fuck up, mudderfucker."

Unfortunately, I can still hear him. The count seems to take ages to go through. I feel as though I can take my time.

"1"

Do I still have knees? Are those tendons still attached and do those bones still bend? Or do they creak under the weight of my skin, fat, and muscle? Calcium deficient. Dystrophy affluent. There's a feeling of a sudden shift. A break after the sounds of a snap and a pop. It's not easy to walk afterwards. I can't at all.

But I run. I run because I must. I feel my legs pump and my blood run. I need it again. I need it to keep going further than before. It's not supposed to be forever, just long enough to get where I need to be. Then I can rest. Then I can let these legs fall back down and lay there. Some place where I won't need to walk. Where there are no stairs or steps that impede you.

Floating away. I stayed there that day.

"2"

"Listen, kid. I'm gonna tell you something I don't tell most people. What I see in you, it's different. I don't just see some punk running around with a big mouth. I see a fighter, I see a stubborn motherfucker that won't quit no matter what. Look at you now, bleeding. Your eyes are swollen, your ears are ringing. Yet still you stand, ready. Wipe that drool and spit that blood. I saw something in you, boy. I see a fire that'll burn everything down. I see it still, and you gotta see it too. Champions are born here, through pain and fury. Show me what you got. Show the world what you got. Motherfucker, get up."

"3"

"It wasn't always so bad. I think the parts I struggled with the most were when you came back. I had to stare at that face every time, all battered and bruised. I could see all the pain you had in you, your eyes barely able to see mine. There's a level of suffering I can't see you take anymore. It hurts me too, knowing how much blood I'll have to clean off the floors and the bedsheets. You never told me it would drag out this long. You never told me you had this sort of passion. An undying love, but I can feel ours waning. There's only so much you can do with those tired hands. I miss the tenderness. I miss you, and I worry about you. Please come back again, and please tell me it's over and you won't go back. Please tell me."

"4"

WARNING. THE OUTER PERIMETER OF THE ETHEREAL GATES HAVE BEEN OPENED.
THIS IS NOT A DRILL. PREPARE TO EVACUATE TO THE NEAREST CORPOREAL SHELTER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT SORT OF DANGERS HAVE BEEN UNLEASHED. OUR COMMUNICATIONS ARE IN FLUX. THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST CHANNEL OPERATING OFF OF AUTOMATIC PROGRAMMING.
GOOD LUCK TO YOU, AND TO THE FUTURE OF OUR NATION. MAY OUR MISTAKES BE RESOLVED AND ABSOLVED.

"5"

Wait, hold on. What was that just now? Was... was that a commercial? Did that just play in my head? How hard did I just get punched? Holy shit, maybe I need to rethink my life choices here. I don't think that was normal, and I don't recognize anyone from that "vision" or whatever the fuck that was. Wait... why is time frozen here? I see the ump, he's just standing still. We all are. I can't seem to move, or maybe I am moving but it's all happening so slowly. How am I able to perceive things like this? My mind's still going so I hope things catch back up to speed soon. I've really got some bad brain damage for sure now. Maybe mom was right.

But what was that commercial saying again? Some sort of... some sort of warning? I think it was something like that, but I'm not sure what it was telling me to do. Evacuate? Where? Now? From what? I'm in a middle of a fight while having a somewhat out of body experience. In fact, it's weird how clearly I feel I can think right now. Things are being perceived so slowly. I'm just wondering how this is all so possible. Maybe this is some sort of CTE thing. Wait, what am I doing right now? Am I getting up? I am. My feet are shuffling. My ass is getting off the ground.

Hold on. Wait. We don't need to rush this. Just stop what you're doing and think. Just stop. Just—

"6"

The lights are so bright but my feet feel so flat like stone on pavement and crawling along the friction and resistance and inertia.

I find a little rock wedged in-between that uncomfortable place between the toes where the gunk lies and the skin bends and dries.

My fingers remain long and tender because they've been roughed up working on pulling weeds out from the long grass under the hot summer sun. I can feel the bits of silica cut into my palm into those grooves in-between the skins where the wrinkles lay that mama says can tell the future of mine.

Get some orange juice.

I love that colour with the ice cubes in it the jar of glass so you hear them tap into each other and make that twinkling noise. It's a chime I like and I hear it nicely in my cup that's also made of glass just how I like and I can sip through that red straw that bends in weird ways.

I love you, mama. I love these days where I can play and you watch me and know I'm ok.

Those days are gone past now. Let me be the one to take care of you now.

I promise I will do my best.

I promise you will get your deserved rest.

"7"

Absolute agony all around me. Beneath that blue bruised flesh, I can barely see. Can't cut it, can't keep it cool or can't call it out. Don't the days that dare destroy me do so till I die.

Everything else up to easing this was erased. Felt that fucking fissure foil fine deep in my head. Greatness was going to get away. Hollow hell was hanging around and hoping I'd help them have me.

Instincts kick in and increase the incredible. Just jostles me along this journey. Killing me keeps the king's heavyweight crown. Let them lap it up while I lie listening and lamenting.

Maybe men like me were made to be more. Never knocked on nobody's door that didn't need it. Over time, over life, over ordinary obedience. Please pretend this pain is pathetic.

Queued up quarterly and quaint. Resting my wrong fist right on your rigid, raw jaw. Swollen stuff and sneeze and sweat and suckerpunched. Time to think through the things you've done.

Under the undying skin of utter upsets. Veracious and vicious, violent bout. When will the watchers wish it was over? Except for excellence in examining, like an X-ray, the broken bones.

You young, you got youth and you got you. Zone out and re-enter the zoo.

"8"

This is the last chance. The very last time. Nowhere else left to go, nothing else left to do. It is in these moments do we find in ourselves the courage to continue against the odds. It doesn't mean you'll overcome, it doesn't mean you shall succeed. But it means you will not fail.

You have faltered. You have endured so much humiliation until now. All the rest you seek will never come in the form you want. Rest only when you've done it. Rest only when you've succeeded.

Do your knees still bend? Does your heart still beat, and do your lungs still draw breath? That is the motion of your existence pushing you through against your own will. Survive this moment, for how little or long it lasts.

Emerge through it. Become someone capable of doing what you pursue. Become real. Become you. Become manifest. There will not be another chance like this for you ever again.

"9"

I seize up. I feel that creeping feeling of disappointment. Of collapsing under the combined weight of my heavy limbs and expectations. They have a word for this I hear a lot.

"Choker."

I failed how many times now? How many times have I tried and come short? How many more times will people have hope in me to accomplish something more?

Maybe it's just not in the cards for me. Maybe there needs to be a loser, and that person is me. Maybe things could be worse and I just need to appreciate what's been given. Maybe it all won't matter in the end.

The chatter. The banter. The absolute and tepid feelings of stares of disgust and disappointment.

Upset from the lack of greatness in the face of adversity. They gambled on me without asking me, and now I get blamed for it.

Black eyes. Busted lips. Broken ribs. Bloody knuckles. Bruised face.

Back again, and again, and again.

Let me lie down now. Let me go. Let me rest and return to history as the loser I may be.

I gave what I could.

"10"

"Well, folks. I can't believe what we've just seen. Sometimes... sometimes we find ourselves unknowingly on the cusp of seeing something historic. That's the best part about it, never knowing when it can happen, just that it will. And tonight, I think it just did. I don't think any of us have seen anything this incredible. What we've just witnessed... it leaves me speechless - it really does. I am struggling right now to form the right words to describe what just happened. But I can't. I just can't believe it."

"Well, Tom. It seems no one really understands what just transpired either. We've known this is something that could have happened, of course. But it's not something we expected at all, especially given the way things were starting to turn out. I'm honestly just as dumbfounded as you, Tom. I think we've seen something we'll never see again. Perhaps tonight was always meant to be a special night, and I'm glad I was here to watch it."

"Ah, you know, there's nothing really better than this. The noise, the fanfare, the excitement. Few things can beat this event in terms of absolute excitement. If you told me a comeback of this scale could happen, if you told me an upset of this scale could happen, I wouldn't have believed you. Not until tonight."

"Now what do we do, Tom? We've been shown to be complete buffoons out here. Analysts? We couldn't analyze this even if we had actual degrees in math and statistics. But I don't need that. Here's my analysis. This is just greatness at work. You always hear about it, you don't always get to see it, but here it was on full display tonight. Absolute beauty. Absolute artistry. Absolute dominance."

"Where else can you catch this other than TSPN 9? Where sports and greatness come together. Thank you everyone for watching, and we'll see you at the next game."