Knossos

“Hey, can you move your helmet? There’s no room for the lychees,” said Jeff.

“Can’t you just put them on top?” said Susan glancing poisonously at the object in question as she shuffled a postcard around under the table from Betty and/or Sarajevo who had really gotten her socks dirty and into the local music scene if you knew what she meant.

“Oh, or we can have the helmet for breakfast and you can wear the lychees on your head! Sweet-sticky protection HA!” said Izzy shuffling from one side of the couch to the other whilst launching a pillow straight at Jeff’s head. “Target accomplished!”

“Yeah Suse here you go. I don’t care what you put on, in, or instead of your head. But the table. Breakfast. It’s the only thing left we have that’s sacred,” said Jeff placing the pillow back in Izzy’s face and shuffling a deck of tarot cards he’d found in between the cracks. “So are you gonna do it today?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I mean, it’s still just training. I think I have to train for a year or something before I pass.”

“You’ve been saying that for a year.”

“Yeah, well I’ve been training for a year.”

“So are you going to do it today?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I mean I have the first four tracks down but I still get stuck at the paragliding fem-bot part.”

“WEEECHEEEE!!!!” said Izzy stuffing four pickled lychees in, on, and instead of her face.

“Well Suse, I think you have as good of a chance as any. I really do. Which is not saying much, but it might be saying something,” said Jeff, diplomatically pouring another espresso for everybody present. “And give me that postcard. We’ll put Betty back on the fridge. She was always happiest there anyway.”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” said Susan, handing over the postcard and stuffing her toes as far under the couch as they would go. “I mean, like, I think I’m making progress, it’s just maybe I’m not supposed to complete the course, you know? I mean a flight license. To be able to go up there and do whatever. Yeah, it would be great, but…hey, actually, who’s this plate for?”

“DANRELL OW!” said Izzy, burning her tongue on the coffee.

“Nah Daniel isn’t here. He went to Berlin for the weekend remember. It’s for Helen.”

“Who the fuck is Helen?” said Izzy.

“Helen. She’s moving in today. So she can have some breakfast later if she wants.”

“Helen. Have you met her?”

“No, only Jeff has. Ok, wish me luck.”

“I wish you luck and the causally determined results of everything in the universe.” said Jeff.

“I wish you luck and don’t listen to him nobody ever knows what an electron is going to do and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise and maybe that cat is alive or dead or whatever! We’ll watch you from the window when you’re off the ground!” said Izzy.

“Oh you guys are doing it on the river?”

“Yeah, we always do it there.” said Susan.

“Since when?”

“Since forever. Jesus Jeff, you’re always shouting ‘Satan Saves!’ from a megaphone when we’re doing it.”

“Oh that’s you guys? HA! Actually?! I swear I didn’t know. I thought it was a vocational training course for virtual acrobatic retailers. Oh my fucking God, I have to up the ante now,” said Jeff, throwing a card at random on the table, which landed full of purpose in a canned corn jar that now housed something orange and gelatinous. “Suit of Swords right in the jelly! Boom-ba-da-boom! How’s that for a daily reading hey Suse!”

“Oh God. Oh God Jeff. Ok, I’m off,” said Susan, taking her helmet and upsetting the lychees which Jeff had after all placed on top.

“Encore!” screamed Izzy, launching a lychee straight at Jeff’s head. “Target accomplished!”

Susan walked out the door leaving Jeff and Izzy to roll around in the sticky-sweet mess that they had made for themselves with very little protection.

Susan got down to the river and looked at the bank and the familiar metal structure rising out over it. From here it looked like a roller coaster that single-harnessed enthusiasts could ride at their leisure, controlling their speed, fun, and thrill levels, everything but when the token picture was going to be taken so they could still laugh at how their hair was standing on end and their mouths were flung open in hilarious mock-shock-and-surprise. But of course it was much more than a roller coaster and there was more to it than control she reminded herself as she looked to those that were carefully traversing the framework and counted how many she knew and respected. Five!… and three. She took a deep breath and tightened her bootstraps before locking in to her own fitted set of straps, weights, and pulleys that she had spent the past year personalizing. She would add sandbags to those sections of the Körpersuit that pulsed a pale lavender signifying weakness, thereby building strength and also achieving the illusion of lightness after removing them, and experiment with various lacquers to give aerodynamic resistance or elegance depending on the course. She had also tinkered with special rotary-plane extensions to the thermal-internal layer to give her more lateral movement when navigating the rhisomic planes, but she had never really got the hang of moving sideways in the air, preferring a more heads on approach when it came to floating plateaus. In fact she preferred to take most things head on, in one go, straight to the silver-feathered underbelly labeled “Guts.” And today she felt them. Or they felt something. But was it breakfast? Was it the tone of the breakfast voice that was now speaking into the long and twisting and now sufficiently protected intestines that was worming its way through central systems not meant to necessarily voice such

“Suzy-Q-Zee! Nice helmet! Red for red hot and raring to go? Going all the way up today?”

“Oh hey Remi, I didn’t know you were gonna be here today.”

“Wasn’t supposed to be, but Janine asked if I could carry some extension rods to the supply room and then there were some novices that really couldn’t even put one arm in a shock holder so I stuck around.”

“Are you really gonna be a trainer then?”

“Me? No, of course not, I mean, not really, it’s always been more of a personal journey for me, I’m not sure I would actually want to certify others to do it, that just sound so cold, even though it’s what we all did. But I do like to lend a hand along the way when I can, because I remember what it was like.”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“Yes, well, frustration kills more than cancer, eh Suzy-Q? But not you, I think you’re close. I’ve been watching you lately.”

“You have?”

“Sure, we all have.

“We?”

“Yeah. We think you can do it. You just need to believe it in the fifth track, ok? And then the rest is just instinct, which you definitely have, if you’d let yourself slide into it.”

Susan shuffled her feet in the cold wet clay. “Ok yeah I just don’t know. I mean maybe I have instinct and maybe not but I can’t know when it’s gonna kick in? Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t, and I don’t know, I mean, I’m pretty solid with the first four, I think they’re alright, I guess I could just…”

“Hey Suzy-Q, that’s where you stop. You stop talking right there when you say, “Sometimes and maybe and who needs their full potential anyway.” You just strap yourself in and take this as a ‘you got this sister.’ I’ll be around if you need any help.”

Susan watched him walk away, broad shoulders competently supporting the weight on top of them. She dug her boots as far into the clay as they would possibly go and wondered if it lusted after elements of air that twisted away in increasingly complicated segments or if it was happy to just be like this, clay-like, holding things closer and tighter the further down you went.

“Whoosh!”

she was up.

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“Hey Suse, how’d it go?”

“Jesus Jeff, like oh my God, what are you doing?”

“Jesus Jeff. That has a nice professional ring to it. Jesus Jeff here to clear you of all your capitalist inflictions.”

“Does that really gel with your politics?,” said Susan, standing over the sink, which was over the trashcan, which was over Jeff.

“Maybe not, but it would, however, gel great with your mom. I mean, she’s such a whore for God anyway. Haha. Hey, like, why aren’t all Christians considered polygamists, since they’re all married to God and stuff? Hey Suse?”

“Hey Jeff, what are you doing under there.”

“Free-association. What are you doing here.”

“I just came up for a glass of water.”

“They don’t have water where you’re training?”

“I just needed a break.”

“So you’re giving it up.”

“I just needed a break.”

“So you’re giving it up.”

“I just needed a…hey what’s Helen going to say when she walks in and you’re under the sink? She’s going to think, wow, these are the crazies and not the fun crazies but the crazies who think they are fun but are actually just embarrassing and nobody should take that much ecstasy after twenty-five.”

“Now Jesus Suse! why would you bring up Helen?”

“Because first impressions last and your head is in our garbage can.”

“First impressions hardly Suse, and my only first impressions now are that this is mostly garbage, and that it is mostly my garbage, so I feel a certain affinity to it, like it is not judging me at all because our souls are perfect reflections of eachother. Some people have mirrors and me I am some people and this is mine. And I’m not on Easy Street here but since you’re done with your practice if you want a taste it’s totally fine if we…”

“Jeff I am not fucking done with my fucking practice. I just came upstairs for a fucking glass of water and a little head-space so get out from under the sink plus that’s the recycling and like if we throw you out and the landlord finds out that we’ve sorted wrong again we’re in big trouble.”

“Ok Suse, whatever you say. You’re only just a dip away from forgetting all that metallurgy, just saying.”

“When’s Helen get here?”

“Three years ago.”

“Yeah whatever Jeff. Oh can you look for my tax return form while you’re in there.”

“Sure thing Suse. Sure thing.”

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Susan dipped one hand into the river and ran it over her face, either to appear to wash off the sweat or to create said sweat on her face or to try to ground herself into some reality where people could really wash off recent events with just one hand and some water from upstream. It had been the same as usual. She had maneuvered through the first four courses with little resistance. Honestly, with little thought. Effort. Consciousness. People had been shocked the first time they had seen her do it, she had gotten through the first three with no experience, shaky at points but still solid enough to pass, and almost the fourth. She had been a kind of wunderkind, and still was, but after all this time (she had zipped through the melodic counter-fencing of the fourth after only just another two weeks) she seemed to, well, have settled, like sediment in the river bed. The trainers were certain that she would come through, that she just needed the right angle, the right inspiration, and yes, of course she would. They would say things like, “But you’ve been training your whole life for this,” or, “This is the time to do it, it doesn’t come back,” or, “You just need to set your expectations a little bit higher. We all set our expectations higher for you. Did you know that? Think as much of yourself as we think of you.” She could not exactly explain that it wasn’t so much that she thought particularly little of herself or that she even lacked ambition, there were just aspects of the course that seemed, well, arbitrary. Proof for proof’s sake. Of course she could usurp a radio-controlled equine figure using a pair of tweezers and an extensive knowledge of the later poems of William Butler Yeats, but did it really mean she was going to transcend something, in herself, in the moment, or just the purple velour steps at the end of the second track that she had walked over without even thinking of the first time she had tried? And what was she fencing off with these questions of inherent merit, was it the shadow of her own inabilities, the fact that maybe she could not get through the fifth track, that although perceived by almost no one else as being the most difficult, there was something about that widening smile of that android-androgynous kick-line hanging above the air that left her, well, paralyzed. She remembered discussing it once with Remi in one of their brief exchanges that she would meditate on for hours, days, sleepless nights afterwards. “The fifth track, Suzy-Q. I know, I know. It got me too for a while. The thing is it’s just in your head. Because you know what? It’s ninety-five percent dull, menial work. Just, practice by the books, technical labor stuff. And the other five percent? Blind enthusiasm. Which I’m guessing might be hard for you. Or that you come up with a bunch of shields against, or grow some tiny self-righteous potted plants that won’t let you into it. But really? Those plants are weeds, and they’re keeping out the sun, and they’re controlling you. You just have to do it Suzy-Q. Even if you don’t like it, because the last two are going to be a cinch for you. I see it when they took you up in the aid-assistant booth, it’s like, you’re at home there. If you get through the first five you can spend the rest of your time just exploring the last two, every day, without the assistance. I know you don’t know if you want it or not, but the thing is…you do. You absolutely do. You’re just letting that small part of you walk around in suits too big for it, and it’s scaring you. Fear kills more than cancer, Suzy-Q, don’t let it get to you. But you won’t. I know you won’t.” He knew she wouldn’t, but lately she got the feeling that he knew it less and less, and that the less he knew it, the less she knew it, and the quicker she failed the fifth track. She knew that the proof was in the pudding and that it was poisonous, because as soon as you tried to serve it you realized that the spoon was some kind of automated prosthetic that would force its way back into your own mouth, and that you would choke, fumble, rush back to the kitchen to vomit in an empty crockery pot before desperately starting over again. She felt the exact moment in the carefully crafted yet basic choreography of the fifth where the poison would course up through her neck veins and into her mouth where it would desperately try to voice itself as a blood-thick rebuttal to no-one but herself since all stood encouragingly yet maybe slightly sad and dumb-founded far below or was that just another part of her imagination? was there anyone even really watching? She was mouthing the words, and going through the motions, she could do this, it’s true it wasn’t rocket science, but then at some point a pin-wheel would form from all the mechanical participators, and as they moved around her in their perfectly calibrated momentum churning the vaudeville chorus out she would lose it for a moment, turn her head the wrong way, for just a second fall a step behind or mistake one robot showgirl for the next, and end up moving on the 8 instead of the 1 and then she would muddle through the rest of it and the curtain would close and she would feel herself being slowly lowered down. Which is exactly what had just happened. She bent down and stuck her whole head in the water, helmet and all, when she felt a hand on her back.

“Hey Suzy-Q, that helmet looks heavy and wouldn’t want to fish you out of the riverbed,” it was Remi, and he was looking at her with concern, or was it pity? disgust?

“Oh hey, Remi, I didn’t think you’d be here.”

“Well, I wasn’t supposed to be, but I took the day off from volunteering at the Yearling Gravitational Resource facility because I’m trying to focus most of my synapses into a new project combining the rhythm of the traffic lights in the greater metropolitan area with a single monitored pigeon: it’s research for the new album. And anyway, I like hanging out here. Looks like you took it hard out there today, eh?”

“Oh, you know, just the same thing. I just lose it a bit.”

“Goddammit Suzy-Q, you can be so stupid, you know that?” said Remi, putting two hands on either side of her wet helmet. “You just need to finish the fifth track. Do you think anyone ever got through it without making a mistake? Do you think that was ever the point? It’s just show-business. It’s just lights, cameras, action. It is, in fact, the easiest thing in the world, and don’t pretend you’re no stranger to acting. You’re not. I’ve been watching you. You’re good when you want to be. So why don’t you want to be?”

Susan took a step back, so that both her feet were in the water, and then another step back, or to think about this, and then another step back, or to get Remi’s hands off what was supposed to be protecting her head from all this.

“Why do they put it in then?” said Susan, to Remi, who was looking at her now with clear pity, or horror, or was it contempt. She continued.

“Why do they put it in then if it’s just a stupid show? Why do they put it in then if everyone knows that’s what it is? Why do I have to pretend that I believe it when nobody else does anyway?”

“Hey, Susan, look, just come back on the land. You’re not yourself today.”

“Why do they put it in? Why would anybody, I mean fucking anybody, put lipstick on an android? For a stupid show that takes place five hundred meters up in the air? That I can’t get through because I can fake my way through a lot of things but as soon as they come on with that brassy introduction and kitsch and sis-boom-BA it just makes me cling to the bare tedious structure because that is the only way I have fucking found to even set foot in that track, counting eight’s through my teeth, telling my feet where to turn pivot and leap off an imaginary ballroom because there is no…fucking…ground, I mean, hasn’t anyone ever just stopped to think about how absurd this all is? Anyone at all?”

“Jesus Christ, Susan, get your head out of that thing and come on the shore. You want to be a fucking martyr? Fine, but do it on the land, ok?”

“Look, and you know what? Maybe I don’t want to do it, but that’s probably not even the problem, because you know why? Maybe I can’t do it, because maybe I already wrote this story and it’s what got me into this program in the first place. But do you know what? There is no separation from that ending and this one. Do you know that Remi? Do you know anything but distance and strength?”

“Susan, come on.”

“Right, Remi. Stoicism and cold heroic features. Something you can watch through a telescope without having to really worry about. That’s how I should act, right.”

“Susan.”

“And you know I wasn’t, but I could have been, did you know that? I really could have been.”

“Susan, hey, let’s not talk about that, ok?”

“Oh of course Remi. Let’s not talk about it. That would really be a change in the pace of our communication.”

“Susan, are you going to drown yourself or not? I think maybe I will stop by the facility after all.”

Susan dug her feet as far into the mossy floor of the river as they would possibly go but it was too late, Remi was looking at her with pity, contempt, and was that just her imagination or was that triumph? and she hated crying she hated crying oh God did she hate crying in the middle of a theatrical performance that she had penned too quickly, too rashly.

You should never play a character that too closely resembles yourself.

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“Whoah, Suse, you go through a rain-cloud or what?” said Jeff, who was balancing air-plane style on top of Izzy. “Me too! It’s getting dark! I’m losing visibility! I’m…!” And he launched straight into her ankles, causing Izzy to squeal and backwards somersault into the last three years’ worth of Time magazine. They both lay there laughing, and Susan stood there standing.

“Yeah, you could say that. It’s just too bad there was no lightning. I’m pretty sure it’s a great conductor so the chances would have been pretty high I guess.”

“Hey Suse, you ok? You don’t really look it. Whoah, the Arab Spring on twitter. Remember when that was a thing? Did you say you lived in Iran?”

Susan went over to the couch and threw her helmet in the middle of the table. Izzy and Jeff stopped rolling around for a second amongst the crumpled headlines of news that had long since ceased to resonate, and looked at her.

“Suse,” said Izzy. “Are you ok? You want us to make you a tea?”

“Didn’t go good, Suse? It’s ok. You can always teach. You’re good at the first four, right? They’ll let you stay for that?”

“I think I’ll go on a bicycle tour.”

“Right, Suse. Whatever you say. You’re not as young as you were, but you’re not as old as you might be, which isn’t saying much but might be saying something,” said Jeff, and then “Ow!” as Izzy stuck a finger deep inside his ear.

“Don’t listen to him Susan. He’s four years older than you anyway.”

“Oh, am I Izzy, am I? And you’re fucking into it, aren’t you?” Izzy smoothed a crumpled Nelson Mandela who looked benevolently if not a bit disheveled on the situation.

“Hey guys, do you think if Helen doesn’t come today I could stay in the room that is supposed to be Helen’s for a while? I’m gonna clean mine and stuff, I just think I work better in there. You know, the desk and all.”

Izzy and Jeff both looked at the floor before standing up and moving to the two seats opposite of the couch.

“Hey, Suse, you know Helen’s not coming today, right, or tomorrow. Come on. It’s hard for all of us.”

“Right, I just meant until then, I could maybe stay in her room.”

Izzy looked like she was going to cry and squeezed Jeff’s hand.

“Sure thing, Suse, you just stay there for as long as you want. But take it easy, alright? Maybe you shouldn’t go to practice this week. I’ll talk to your trainer. In fact, why don’t you just go lie down. We’ll bring you some tea.”

“We love you, Susan,” said Izzy, through tears.

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Susan lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, debating whether she wanted to try to fall asleep or not. She knew what would happen. She would close her eyes, and the world would wash away, and she would be alone beneath the steel blue of a perfect sky. And then, slowly, her feet would lift off the ground, and then, not so slowly she would begin to fly. She would experience a rush of elation and relief as she abandoned her weight free of harness ropes and pulleys and speed fearless to a point that was still so far above her. But then the acceleration would not stop, and she would not be flying, she would be hurtling, and she would not be in control. She would be a one woman rocket forever outward bound from the world below. She would cross stratosphere, the moon, the planets, the stars, everything known and visible to the place where light and heat go to die. It was not so much the cold, the isolation that filled her with a terror that approached some sort of absolute at an inverse rate to her increasing speed. It was the fact that there could be no limit to the appetite of that speed, that you could be in a universe whose own basic laws of physics were violated past the point of recognition, and that logic and certainty were as far away as two feet firmly planted on a ground all too sure of itself.