Into Dust
At first, he thought it was the weed. He was high as shit on a beach in the Exhumas, sitting on pink sand, staring out at the toilet-bowl blue of the Caribbean, when he saw it: a black dot, hanging just out of reach. He rubbed his eyes and sipped from a second hurricane that morning to wash away a hangover and the paranoids. The black dot remained. Drink in hand, he got up and lumbered over to the edge of the dead calm surf. He reached outNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGand screamed, spilled hurricane dyeing a scattered patch of pink sand red. Something thick with bile filled his nostrils as he struggled to regain his breath, collapsing on the surf, tasting brine.
When he could see again, there was pink and blue and white, all one. Ragged breaths assured him he was still alive, not NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING NOTHING. Lurching up, sitting half in the water, he splashed his face with bathwater warmth, rinsed out the filth from his mouth and nose, trembling in every nerve. Jesusgod, did I just have a stroke? There was nobody on the beach this early in the morning, and his hands shook too much to be of any use when he fumbled out the silvery grey blur that was his phone. I need help, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna fucking die.
His vision improved only slightly as he struggled to recover his strength on the beach, half-crawling towards the hotel, a forever beyond the line of palms that secluded the beach. He could make out individual fronds swaying in the ocean breeze, but they looked blocky, sharp edges that blurred with motion. A year had passed, yet the tree line remained in the distance. He gathered his courage to look back at the surf, consumed with the need to know how far he had come. He hadn’t.
In place of the black dot, a blinking green asterisk hovered in defiance of reality. He was sick, he was dying, and he was delusional. Scanning the empty postcard beach, he began to cry. Where the fuck is everybody? The calm blue surf blended with the pink sand, rivulets of pink bleeding and comingling with rivulets of blue, all glittering trapezoids with green asterisks like marshmallows floating in cereal. He looked down at his hands. His digits had become two clusters of prehensile rectangles. Searching with dying eyes, ASCII characters flooded the periphery of his visionNOTHINGNOTHING NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING NOTHINGNOTHINGChristmas with Grandma and Aunt FayeNOTHING NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGJulia and the baby, when times were goodNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING NOTHINGflirting with the hot girl at the work partyNOTHINGNOTHING NOTHINGNOTHINNOTHINGplaying with the cat, he stops to lick his balls NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING biking up in the Keewanaw forest NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING NOTHINGNOTHINGdinner with dad and his new girlfriendNOTHING NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING NOTHINGcar license plate reads “DEEZNUTZ”NOTHINGNOTHING NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING NOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHINGNOTHING…
The botmail chimed and Jun-Seo Park swore under his breath. Quota deadlines ahead of the holidays meant ten hour days, every day until demand could be met or if corporate changed their trajectory with yet another model. He unplugged the N-GRAM VR6 from the refurb mold, released the contacts with a swipe on his pad, and sealed it in a plastic blister, placing it on top of the pile ready for resale. Park stretched in his seat until his neck and upper back resounded with a series of satisfying cracks, and swiveled over to the steering wheel. If he could get ahead of traffic and dump off this load to the retailer before eleven, he could grab a bite from the goguigi cart he favored on Wednesdays. The unwashed Daihatsu minivan groaned into gear, on the side door a mud-spattered magnet sign angled carelessly read AT&T: OFFICALLY LICENSED CONTRACTOR.
