

  The Existential Blues.



 
This is a little old, now. Before Existential Blues ever gets published --
if it ever does -- the following will be rewritten:
 
                                                                          

     Copyright 1996 by Daniel Keys Moran.
                            All rights reserved.

     I, Daniel Keys Moran, "The Author," hereby release this text
         as freeware. It may be transmitted as a text file
    anywhere in this or any other dimension, without reservation,
        so long as the story text is not altered IN ANY WAY.
    No fee may be charged for such transmission, save handling fees
          comparable to those charged for shareware programs.

      THIS WORK MAY NOT BE PRINTED OR PUBLISHED IN A BOOK, MAGAZINE,
   ELECTRONIC OR CD-ROM STORY COLLECTION, OR VIA ANY OTHER MEDIUM NOW
    EXISTING OR WHICH MAY IN THE FUTURE COME INTO EXISTENCE, WITHOUT
  WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE AUTHOR. THIS WORK IS LICENSED FOR READING
       PURPOSES ONLY. ALL OTHER RIGHTS ARE RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR.




 
The Existential Blues, Part One:
 

On the Boulevard of Dreams

 

 
 
Sometimes I feel
Like the world is unreal
I think it has to be
There ain't no answers,
Only dancers
Who dance real slow with me.
 
The Armageddon Blues Band
Dancers, from the album
Why Are These Drums So Round?
 

 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Great Wheel lived.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    That was the Enemy's first thought in the moments after
the warheads annihilated it.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    It reassembled itself slowly in the first moments after
the death of the being Mordreaux. Echoes of a being named
ENCELIS it touched briefly, cherished, enhanced, and left
with a being known as PRAXCELIS.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Great Wheel lived.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The structure of the timeline on which it had incubated
revealed itself to the Enemy's gaze. The timeline existed
with a probability of near-totality; its total energy level
was eight times as great as that of the timelines
immediately surrounding it. . . .
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    . . .surrounding it.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Suddenly it found the way outside. It moved up, and
found itself in the midst of a swirling gray storm that
filled the walls between the worlds, looking down on a vast
structure, a wheel, upon which timelines were laid at right
angles around the rim. The timelines had form, and
structure; they were discrete spokes of energy that radiated
up and down from the rim of the Great Wheel. The Enemy saw,
as it drifted along the Great Wheel, that the Uncertainty
Principle grew more powerful; that Law degenerated.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    It looked away to the direction that seemed to it to be
the top of the Great Wheel. At the north end of the great
wheel, there was a brightness.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    A glow.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Enemy of Entropy oriented itself slowly. It found
itself drifting away from the glow. Years were passing in
those moments, as the Enemy came to grips with the pulse of
time and particle its life had become.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The north pole of the Great Wheel radiated law, gave
reason to all of existence. As the Enemy drifted south along
the Wheel, the power of Law waned; the Uncertainty Principle
appeared, grew powerful, and dominated. Time travel became
possible, in a wild zone where no timeline was more secure
than a candle in the wind, where timelines shifted, vanished,
and were created anew.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Further past that, the timelines at the far side of the
Great Wheel opposite the Pole of Law; those timelines were
bastions of anarchy and unreason, timelines embedded in a
swirling gray maelstrom of chaos.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Enemy made a decision. It willed and then by its
will moved. It ghosted north crossing countless trillions of
timelines, across the territory of the timeline-spanning
Walks-Far Empire, where a tribe of Indians that were all but
extinct on most timelines had come to know power. It
approached the bright, living pole of Law that gave
structure to the Great Wheel of Existence.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Enemy of Entropy, the being who had once been a man,
approached the Pole of Law, and the radiance that surrounded
it grew. It came to know that the Force behind the Pole of
Law was a very structured being. Elements of its structure
made the Enemy of Entropy pause in thought: in many ways,
the Pole of Law was similar to the Enemy itself, though on
an incredibly vaster scale.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Enemy moved into the nimbus surrounding the Pole of
Law.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Being at the Pole of Law was Power, and Law; it was
Form and Structure; it bound creation together.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Being became aware of the Enemy of Entropy.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    In a microcosm of time, too short for it ever to recover
fully in memory again, the Enemy learned many things in
great detail:
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Being at the Pole of Law knew itself as an Envoy. It
was older than the Great Wheel itself; it was capable of
understanding none of what its presence meant to the Great
Wheel; and it was there not because it wished to be, but because
it had been chained there by some force greater than itself.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    It was God.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    It was insane, perfect, and perfectly malevolent -- and in
that moment it became aware of the Enemy's presence and
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    -- struck.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The Enemy, blasted and dazed, fled, south, into the safe
darkness, into the gray maelstrom. . . .
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    . . .into Chaos.

 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Tourists Go Home:
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Here they are and they're walking, right, in the rain,
and the girl, whose name is Flowers and whose nickname is
Doctor Death, is angry because she is short, and when the
rain stops she will be the last one to know.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The guy is walking backward and singing to himself in a
strange language, it sounds like a box of twinkies on fire.
His name is Loopy and that's really his name, Loopy Jonathon
the Third. Loopy Jonathon towers over Doctor Death without
meaning to. Suddenly he spins around in a complete circle,
and the tourists on Hollywood Boulevard watch him with
interest; he has executed an almost perfect pirouette over
the star of Greta Garbo. Loopy Jonathon is wearing a shirt
that says on the front Universal Truth Number One: On the
back it continues, Life's a Bitch. Then You Die.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Universal Truth Number Two:" proclaims Loopy Jonathon,
"You should never say, `Well, why don't you bite my head
off?' to a female grasshopper who is bigger than you are.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "Listen," says Doctor Death with blazing eyes and rigid
self-control, "It's raining and I'm depressed and I don't
want to listen to any more of your stupid jokes!" Her eyes
flash sparks at him, and the sparks float lazily down to the
sidewalk, to sizzle out in puzzles of water. "Okay?" she
screams suddenly. "Is this all right?"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    They are walking past Grauman's Chinese Theater, a place
where famous men and women have had their names and feet and
hands preserved in cement. John Wayne's feet are smaller
than you think. "Oh," says Loopy Jonathon in injured tones,
"If you insist." With stiff dignity, he bends over and
starts walking on his hands. "It's just that you're not as
pretty when you're all gloomed out." He pauses, flexes his
wrists, and tries to hop over a crack in the sidewalk. He
fails. "Oh, mother," he cries. He flips back to his feet.
"What have I done?"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Doctor Death says, in ominously quiet voice, "I don't
want to hear it."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Loopy Jonathon stands very still. Finally he looks down
at Doctor Death, and there is a devil-light in his eyes,
like a television that has been turned off and set on fire.
Rainbows refract from the lights in his eyes off of the
raindrops that cling to his eyelashes. "Killer," he agrees0
calmly. Abruptly, he Changes, and then he is Rod Serling
(some of the street people stop performing, to watch in
admiration) and he says, "Submitted for your approval: the
Cool family."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Without pausing Doctor Death runs a finger down the
magslip that keeps her coat closed and takes out shurikens,
beautiful deadly throwing stars, and starts juggling with
them.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Loopy Jonathon backs away, walking quickly and then
running, running backward down Hollywood Boulevard at a fair
clip, and Doctor Death is not running after him, but somehow
she is staying as close to him as ever, and the crowd is
getting out of the way, the crowd is thinking to itself,
These people are weirder than we are.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "The Cool family," said the Voice of Rod Serling, "Sissy
and Doug and Mondo and Joe and Byron. Sissy and Doug are the
parents, two aging refugees from college who never adapted
to the chuckle chuckle real world; and their children. Mondo
Cool is a fifteen year old high school dropout-in-training,
blond-haired with polychrome rainbow sunglasses, a
California Girl, jailbait, a girl with one foot on a bale of
grass so high that she walks with a continual limp, and one
foot in the Twilight Zone. . . .Joe Cool, a nineteen year-
old successful high-school dropout and all-around
charismatic human being. . . .Byron Cool, their twelve-year
old little brother, about whom the less said the better,
except that Byron once chewed the same piece of hamburger
for two hours just to see if it could be done, you know? and
who was responsible for spreading a terrible social disease
throughout his junior high school.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "As our episode begins, Mondo Cool and her brother Joe
are in the living room, watching television and smoking
Acapulco Gold. The television is a malevolent cyclops
reflecting its images off of their sunglasses, and on the
screen there is, unfolding, the very latest episode of
'Pirates on Rollerskates'. . . ."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    "That's it," screams Doctor Death. Tourists scatter into
the streets at the sound, and get run over and die. "No more
jokes!" A shuriken cuts through the air, the rain, and Loopy
Jonathon. Blood spurts from his shoulder, dribbles down over
the bright neon-lit silverette shuriken. "No more fucking
jokes!"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Another shuriken strikes Loopy Jonathon, and he is
holding his hands up in front of him as though that will
protect him from the too-sharp steel, he is screaming a high
wavering sound, and a shuriken grows out of the palm of one
hand, and then the scream stops abruptly and there is a
shuriken half buried in his throat.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    He flops to the sidewalk, and his blood is dark, Doctor
Death was expecting it to be shiny for some reason, but it's
not, it's dark and nearly black, and the rain washes it away
into the gutter.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Doctor Death stands over his body with the rain falling
steadily on her shoulders, dripping like tears over her
sunbrown cheeks, the neon rainbows shimmering in her damp
eyelashes. "You stupid bastard," she whispers, "why did you
make me do that?"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Loopy Jonathon does not answer her because he is dead,
and the crowds are trying hard not to notice any of this
because it will ruin their evenings if they do, even worse
than the rain already has.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Doctor Death sits down on the sidewalk, gleaming leather
boots in the water of the gutter. She shakes her head.
"Pirates on roller skates, indeed," she says in black, black
depression. She starts pulling her bloody shurikens out of
Loopy Jonathon's body.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Less than two blocks away, had Doctor Death only known
it, is something that would have slightly alleviated her
awful depression. In a bathroom in a ARCO gas station on
Hollywood and Sixth, a person is in the process of writing
the following:
 

    The sun shines on metal 
    So pretty 
    I envy the new robots in their perfection 
    All smoked glass and chromium steel 
    Perhaps I'll join them 
    Shed my skin and trade these messy gray cells 
    For the beauty of silicon semiconductor 
    Perhaps I'll join them 
    Reprogram to new parameters, and walk with the new robots 
    Among the brass orchids 
    But then I would no longer be a man 
    And the smell of salt 
    The sight of mist crawling in over San Francisco Bay 
    Would be only a reminder of rust

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    The truly amusing part of all this, of course, is that
the being dying in the stall in the men's room is not a man;
it is an android, a cunningly constructed artificial person;
on its forearm it bears the alphanumeric RVS1302-22-98GK.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    Leaving the bathroom are two completely ordinary-looking
men wearing silver jumpsuits and their eyes glitter a little
bit, and everybody who sees them thinks, As if there weren't
enough techno-punk fags in this city to begin with.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    One of the men, a time-hunter from the year 2812, says
to the other man, a techno-punk fag who he met in the
bathroom while he was killing the runaway android, "I'll
tell you, friend, I hate it when I get these semifer damn
androids who go Loopy Jonathon."
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    But Doctor Death, two blocks away and getting further
away with every step, does not know these things, and so she
trudges off down the Boulevard with a black fury that causes
the rain to evaporate off her in clouds of steam, which
looks silly, which pisses her off even worse.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
    And. . . .
 
As Doctor Death is stalking off of the Boulevard in a
destructive all-consuming rage, and kills a break dancer
just for the hell of it, on a hill overlooking the
Boulevard, there is a brief bright flicker of light, and the
Enemy of Entropy takes the shape of a man, standing alone in
the rain.


 
