There was a city called Upsole in a country called Tisage where it rained for 15 years straight. Upsole, Tisage. From the first year onwards, language grew ever more acute. We know, from [redacted] having excavated three bedtime stories etched on concrete slabs from the first three years of the decade-longer period—the first story from year one; the second from year two; the third from year three—that communication itself transformed at an uncharacteristically rapid pace, as if the climate mutated the conveyance of meaning as much as it altered the atmosphere and terrain.
Historical reports and analyses offer explanations that focus on shifts in the ecology and climate, but rarely do they mention the strangest phenomenon of all: everyone was thirsty. A stark increase in dehydration occurred throughout the entire population of Upsole during that 15-year period. The unquenchable thirst only subsided with the rain. It seems like a contradiction: the rain was perfectly potable; why not collect water in buckets or stand outside, look up, and open your mouth? The city had a well-functioning plumbing system which supplied clean drinking water through taps piped into the homes of all its inhabitants. Water was abundant, so why was everyone thirsty?
Perhaps these three bedtime stories from the time of Upsole’s persistent rainfall offer a glimpse into the oddities that occurred. From these passages, we can offer general paradigms which may constitute legitimate contributions to further research and investigation: The first year, there was confusion (is the rain a blessing or a curse?) and panic—everyone spoke in an unsettling rhyme with no discernible rhythm or meter; the second year, acceptance and resignation may have led to an unadorned, cold, and unhappy pragmatism; around the third year, an inward mysticism took hold. This final mode would last over a decade, ceasing only when the rain gave way to clear skies and a dryness forgotten by the vast majority of the population. As I’m sure everyone is now aware, the current communication system in Upsole is entirely absent: Nobody speaks at all.
1.
a mourning of morning
One wet morning, Obsolete Oliver—a young boy, the age of twenty-three—spun on the heels of both his feet, came to a stop at the corner of Trident and Sense, and began walking backwards, triggered by a sudden thought concerning the best way to increase his competence. He spun round once more to reverse his direction—returning home, ankles pointing at an awkward flexion. He climbed his building’s seven-hundred and thirty-two levels and lifted the concrete latch to his concrete apartment reflecting the red and blue lights of the neighboring commerce department.
In a concrete corner, lying flat on a concrete sofa, head on a concrete pillow, complained his father, “skipping work again, I see”—spoken from clean-shaven jowls exposing his dry, paternal physiognomy. Oliver spun round to face him, hoping to find words of encouragement for his newfound enlightenment, “Relax your disfigured expression. On the way to work, I was struck by a vision of self-possession; an idea that will increase my productivity through work and efficiency to generate a profound wealth for you and this family.” “Out with it, then,” said immovable father while staring intensely at the bright, white ceiling light in an attempt to blind himself.
Oliver brought a concrete tray from the kitchen, placed it on the concrete table facing the concrete sofa, and tried to explain his mission. Before he could speak: “Don’t persuade me with promises unkept and tea poorly-prepared; just tell me your plans quickly so I can return to my coma unsighted and unaware,” interrupted perturbed patriarch while grabbing a spoon from the tray without looking, not realizing it wasn’t a knife, and stabbing it bluntly into his stomach.
Dismayed by the lack of incision, he sighed a sigh so deep it shook the cupboard across the room, dislodging from its tomb Oliver’s brother, sister, and mother who were eavesdropping with judgement, ignoring consensual arrangement, eager for arraignment.
Mother-sister-brother came crashing down face first, then stood up and howled in harmony and resonance without excuse or penitence, “Yes, Oliver, tell us your plan—out with it, you premature man!” Oliver jumped with a twitch, frightened by the audience, screeching a pitiful whimper that reverberated off the concrete walls so high-pitched and imprudent it broke all the bones of the thousands of shoppers in the neighboring department. They fell to the floor moaning helplessly under the hoard: spilled soups, toys, and liquors—all on sale at half the price. Sadly, everyone drowned in the merchandise. There were no survivors except Oliver and his family who were completely unsacrificed.
After observing a moment of silence for the fallen shoppers respected, the kin-trio doubled their focus, squawking inflected, “The time has come—reveal everything, you lazy bum!” Overwhelmed by the community chorus and the guilt of causing all those deaths and casualties, Oliver went to the other side of the room and grasped the concrete bust of his great grandfather from atop the concrete mantelpiece. It hung over a gap in the concrete wall which spat smoke from the next-door tenant’s suite. He faced his family with a look of non-compliance, held the bust aloft, and shoved it through the hole in an act of defiance. Everyone stared in confusion and silence until his father said, “Someone will have to retrieve that,” while clenching his right hand into a fist around his left fingers attempting in vain to remove them, one by one, from their sockets.
“Get it back, get it back—through the crack, you ungrateful brat!” Oliver turned into a worker ant and, through the hole, he crawled. On the other side, he returned to himself and saw in the corner a young man curled; the rain began to seep through the windows and walls, so Oliver grabbed his hand and pulled him up so he could stand. But he didn’t have any legs and the boy fell back into an orb in the puddle of water without speaking a word. Oliver tried to speak but he couldn’t find a sound. He tried to think but there wasn’t a thought around. The orb began to glow with a greenish hue and, after it shed algaeic mildew, Oliver saw it wasn’t a boy at all—it was a rounded-fleshly-fortune-telling doll. Oliver returned home after plucking it from the water, completely forgetting the bust of his great-grandfather. “What a find! What a discovery! Surely, it foretells financial recovery,” sang the chorus of kin who had abandoned their previous chagrin. “It’s probably broken,” said his father who had bitten off all his fingernails.
It wasn’t broken in the slightest and the glow around the sphere vibrated and tightened, echoing a prediction in the minds of all who would listen: “Through collective impatience, singular apathy, or accidental tragedy—appetite expires, mourning and nearing the flooded gutters of protohistory’s antiquity.” And with that the orb exploded with a pop, scattering its million-pieces like ash to the floor they dropped. Confused and distraught, Oliver sank in the sofa next to his father—who had died suddenly after failing to contort his body in the shape of a martyr.
2.
the evening, Aphter
The day turned to night and the streets lights clicked on as Sovereign Sable, an elderly woman with hair like corrugated iron, was walking home after work. She stopped at a corner and picked up a metal button submerged in a puddle reflecting the white lights that rippled from the rain. She put it in her jacket pocket and felt its geography: not too deep and not too shallow. “Add that to the list of newly acquired excellences,” she thought while hugging the jacket she had recently purchased.
The jacket made her feel dry and warm and anonymous, protected from the dark, damp evening—a large hood cast a shadow over her face. It masked her eyes to the tip her nose. The street lamps were high and far from the ground; distant light projected only a minor glow when reflected up from the puddles. When she stepped over those pools of light, the hood’s shadow occasionally retreated to the middle of her nose, but never further than the dark circles under her eyes. Strangers who passed her on the street might think she wore a veil: “That woman—how theatrical, how mysterious,” they would think to themselves (Sable thought to herself).
She wore that shadow like the jacket, an article essential to public appearance. Her previous jacket did not even have a hood—”how sad,” she hadn’t realized what she was missing. The jacket and its hood, a canopy against the light, had risen to the top of her list of newly acquired excellences. It shielded her from the allure of the street lamps. They were too bright and she couldn’t resist staring into them. It was a happy remedy, under the shadow of the jacket’s hood.
Her footsteps echoed through the staircase corridor as she made the climb to her apartment. The hood stayed up even though she was inside. Her ankles were sore. Each step was taken with slow purpose and her thoughts began to wander. She thought about pickles and peaches, which tasted remarkably different. She would have to choose which one to eat once she got home. Something sour or something sweet. From her stomach, a murmur. What to eat, the choice became a burden and she didn’t want to think about food anymore because there was too much to consider. Appetites change quickly, after all. Eating the peach might make her regret not choosing pickles. Then she might end up with a half-eaten peach or a half-eaten pickle. The pickle she could save, but the peach would rot and she might have to toss it. What a waste that would be. And maybe she would lose her appetite upon opening the refrigerator door. After work, after walking home, while climbing the stairs—indecision was best. She would leave it to whim.
Still climbing the stairs, she imagined opening the door to her empty apartment, envisioning the forthcoming scene. It would be dark at first, but turning on the lights would warm it up and make the whole space feel more inviting. She could settle and find comfort in the quiet afforded by living on the 732nd floor. She thought, “silence is worth,” before she was interrupted by another thought: coming home would surely feel different if she’d had a pet. Maybe a puddlepuff or a riverrump. A puddlepuff would be better because they wouldn’t require the attention of other animals. It would be so happy to see her when she came home every night. They would wake up together and eat dinner at the same time and it would greet her friend, Absent Aphter, when she would visit to play a game of feevs. It would sleep next to the table while they played and drank sweet liquors. They would laugh and talk about how quickly puddlepuffs grow and it would look up at them with its 47 eyes and 32 tails and shake its plump furry coat, excited to be seen, anticipating a treat. But, then it really would grow older and it would remind her about getting older herself. The care and money required to take care of a pet in its old age. The whole time she would be worried about finances and who would take care of her? It would struggle to climb up and down the stairs every day. Of course, it would need to go outside to exercise and do what pets do. She would love it because they would have spent so much time together and their personalities and mannerisms and schedules would have grown similar, comfortable together. The warmth when she would plunge her face into its belly. It might not like all that attention, but she wouldn’t be able to resist smothering it with affection. But, that personality and warmth would change in its later years and she would feel overwhelmed by that change and think that this pet she had loved so much had become something else. She would feel guilty when thinking that taking care of it had become a chore. The love altered and confusion raised would mix together and it would all be too much to handle. She might wish she had never decided to get a puddlepuff at all. Then she would feel guilty again—that she would even think such thoughts after all the richness and closeness and joy they had brought each other.
Sable was so saddened by this thought that she began to cry. She cried for a few minutes, then she laughed. It was silly, feeling so heartsick about such fiction. Some drama she had created while walking up the stairs to her apartment, an idea formed to pass the time. It had spiraled out of control. Better avoid such thoughts in the future. She said, “oh, dear” out loud to herself and wiped away her tears with her gloved hands.
The gloves were not new. They were old and the material was peeling and sometimes she would find flakes of its fabric in her closet or on her sofa or in her pockets, wherever she left them when she wasn’t wearing them. It’s about time to throw them away and buy new ones. She got excited about shopping for a new pair, but she had just bought a new jacket, so she decided to wait until next month to buy new gloves, “I suppose they have another month left in them. They’ve lasted this long.” But, it would be nice to have a new pair of gloves now and she did love shopping and now she would have to postpone something that made her happy, “maybe I’ll just take a look and shop around in the meantime, but I wouldn’t make a habit of it.” She didn’t cry this time.
“I wouldn’t make a habit of it” was something she often said. Her friend, Aphter, even once commented that it was something of a Sable trademark. Sable didn’t mind; she embraced it and began saying it with added awareness and precision. She had even turned it into a joke a few times and was pleased when it made her friend laugh. From then on, she would be careful not to overuse it. She didn’t want her clever joke to become stale. That would leave a blemish on the memory of them laughing together even if it was at her expense. She was the one who made the joke after all and there was no reason to feel embarrassed or ashamed at poking fun at yourself, she thought. But, then she realized that it was actually Aphter who first pointed it out, not her. She did feel slightly embarrassed by that. “All in good fun, though,” she said under her breath, accepting the embarrassment as a crucial element of the joke being funny in the first place. She tried to remember exactly what she had said that made her joke so clever, but couldn’t. “I know it was some turn of phrase”—a moment of pause before giving up, hoping it would come to her later. A smile came across her face as she removed her gloves and hood, took out her concrete key, and turned it in the concrete lock to her concrete apartment.
As she opened the door, she was startled by a sound coming from inside. Something was ringing like an empty glass struck lightly with a metal object at the opposite end of a deep hallway. It reminded her of the electric hum of street lights down an empty sidewalk on a quiet night. She hadn’t turned on the lights yet and electric currents don’t sound as delicate, shiny, or high-pitched. That is strange, she thought; her living room was well-lit, but she was sure she had turned off the lights before leaving that morning. Besides, the light was a different color and type from those in her apartment. It was almost like the light didn’t have a source. It was an echo of a light. The sound too seemed like an echo without a source. She walked to her living room, towards the light and the sound without turning on the lights. There, in the middle of the room, she saw two metallic buttons identical to the one she had picked up on her walk home. The buttons were floating in the air, unaffected by gravity, right there above the concrete table in the center of her living room. They were bobbing freely without touching the floor, surrounded by a glow they were not producing and making a sound they were not emitting.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the metal button she had found earlier. It sat in her palm no different than before; she examined it, and then looked up at the other two. Nothing happened. She walked closer and raised her palm nearer the two buttons as if they were hungry and she was offering them something to eat. The button in her hand may have vibrated a little, but she wasn’t sure, so she brought it closer. Her hand was inside the light when all the buttons began to vibrate. “Yes, there is definitely some movement now,” she thought while pursing her lips in a way that marked a sudden awareness and hesitation. She removed her hand from the glow and dropped the button. It did not float like the other two. It fell to the floor, so she bent down to pick it up. But, she didn’t pick it up because she suddenly noticed her hand was warm and different. It looked much larger and it felt like it belonged to someone else. It wasn’t just larger; it was in the process of growing at a slow, steady pace. She stood up without picking up the button and went to the kitchen sink to run her hand under cold water, which stopped the growing but didn’t return it to its normal size.
Now her right hand was twice the size of her left hand. It didn’t hurt, but she was worried her gloves wouldn’t fit anymore. Her worry doubled—she was looking forward to shopping for new gloves and now she would have to ask for one normal-sized glove and one larger glove. She felt embarrassed just thinking about it. Then she thought, “I can just buy two pairs of matching gloves in two different sizes and say that one is for me and one is for my friend. Hopefully, nobody will notice the size of my right hand. I’ll try to keep it in my pocket as much as possible. It’s a good thing the pockets on my new jacket are so roomy. Spacious, yes, but not uncomfortably so. It is annoying when you have one of those big caverns and you have to dig around in there to find what you want because their size makes you think you can hoard more trinkets and so-and-so’s and now it’s chock-full of whatnots and knickknacks. And some don’t have pockets at all! Totally absurd. Yes, this jacket is just right.” She calmed down and put her newly grown hand in her jacket pocket and moved it around with ease and comfort, satisfied that she had found an adequate solution to her problem.
She kept her hand in her pocket, admiring the fit. She even twirled and wiggled as if beginning to dance on the way back to the living room, returning to the buttons with renewed temperament. It all seemed a bit silly in that moment. She felt like she was solving some kind of puzzle, piecing together clues that would spell resolution; “really it’s nothing, these are just buttons floating in my living room in some kind of glowing light. They seem harmless and maybe it’s just a coincidence I stumbled on a very similar button. Well, now I’ve got a whole family of buttons!” She laughed as she sat down on her concrete sofa, smiling at the two floating buttons, then at the original button still on the floor. The latter felt more familiar and, playing favorites, she decided to give that one special treatment from now on. She picked it up off the floor and placed it front-and-center on her mantel, ahead of so many other collectibles, the histories of which she had forgotten.
A knock came at the door. Loud enough to hear, Sable asked, “Who is it?”
“It’s me,” said Aphter.
“Oh, Aphter! Just a moment,” said Sable as she stood up and wagged her finger in jest at the three buttons as if to say, “be on your best behavior, you three.”
Walking to the entryway, she said “You’ll never believe what’s happened, Aphter. You just won’t believe it.”
“Oh?” Aphter said from beyond the door.
Sable was smiling. She had already let her friend inside.
3.
in a wake for sound
Trying not to think, Psychosis (p)Syve was the first to notice the clouds were changing. The fog shifted underfoot the transformation overhead. Thick rain splashed oil on the sidewalk and street lights, coating the city in a black paste. A drop on the light above cast a pinpoint shadow on the pavement below. She looked up and flinched when one caked her glasses. The paste stuck to her fingers when she tried to wipe it off. It stretched malleable strands when pinched and pulled. She brought it closer to her face and smelled it, paused, then licked it. The flavor of warm spice was not as grimy as it looked. There was a contagiousness as it moved down her esophagus. Reaching inside, it lifted her gently out of the city.
(p)Syve cut head sized holes in pieces of round concrete and wore them as necklaces because she liked the weight. It grounded her. Later, she learned to make them lighter.
She now wished she had worn one of her heavier necklaces as she rose past the skyline. Something to reverse the upward pull. She rifled through her pockets, which contained many things of no use to her. Mostly trash. “This whole situation: inconvenient and disagreeable even, but not dire.” She resigned and let the gravity take her. Her acceptance reminded her of a recent evening she had spent making dinner alone. Thoughtfully plated, looking delicious, she was carrying the hot meal from the kitchen to the dining table when her eager pace flung her right foot into her left with a zeal she had not anticipated, causing her to stumble. The meal splattered and became goop on the floor. She stared disapprovingly at the slop for a full 20 minutes, stunned into silence—her shame needed an object, but she had had nobody to blame except herself.
Luckily, she had made enough for two meals. But, she did have to clean up the mess before she could eat, which took half the time she had spent staring at her mistake. After she filled a new plate and carefully walked to the table, she laughed; she could have cleaned two shattered plates in the time it took her to internalize her grief and clumsiness and misfortune.
This memory still being fresh while she was ascending into the atmosphere led her to liken her feelings about spilt dinner to her current situation. “Skip the lament; embrace the remedy,” she decided. And when she stopped searching for an anchor that might reverse the reversed gravity, her momentum slowed and she emerged from the overcast to plant her feet inside the solidified dust of powdered sugar. She stood lighter, looking out at the plump, red fruits and pink petals sprinkled throughout a vast landscape of delicate white creams, whipped vaporous. Propped up on its pillows, encased in a transparent film of soapy bubble, like a treasure offered, materializing before her in the exact arrangement as it appeared in the memory she had just recalled: the same broken plate and wasted food, a mess on the floor. Unlike her memory, it looked uncontaminated—appetizing, even. She felt a craving tickle and build.
She tried to retrieve it by popping the bubble, but it wouldn’t burst and the liquid stuck film to her fingers. Again, she pinched and pulled to test the consistency; pliant strings threaded between her index and thumb. Again, she smelled it and tasted it; toasted pines, vetiver, nutmeg, and black pepper like hot wax coated her mouth. It turned into a ball and migrated down her throat and began to adjust—sentient, trying to find a comfortable position. While it wiggled, (p)Syve heard it grunt and sigh. The noises came through her esophagus like an echo forced to the points of her mind where conversation is made. And the material encasing the image of her dinner, which became film on her fingers, which became a ball of wax, which migrated down her digestive tracts, half-regurgitated—its head peeking out her mouth while its body sat snug in the tightening blankets of her gullet’s musculature—engaged her in dialogue:
—Well, well, hello and hello. Are you troubled, are you lost? Are you obsessed beyond and against yourself? Oh, are you busy now? Just taking a walk?
—(gurgling) Yes, hello, it’s me. I was just taking a walk when the rain changed. I think I got hungry and, well, here I am.
—And here I am interrupting your dinner.
—Actually, I was just trying to forget my hunger.
—Forget your hunger, why?
—I can’t remember.
—Success! So, what’s the trouble?
—No trouble.
—But, you’re lost.
—I might be.
—Can you locate it?
—Locate myself?
—Yes, you and all the rest.
—I guess I’ve lost track of time.
—It’s two.
—What’s two?
—The time is two.
—Photic or aphotic?
—Does it matter?
—You did ask me if I was lost, or you told me I was lost when I didn’t think I was, and here I am telling you what I’ve lost, time, and now you ask if it matters yet you seem to have it or an answer for it. You started talking to me, remember?
—Do you remember?
—Success.
—It’s two.
—There you go again.
—Take your eye…
—I’ll keep it, thanks.
—…for example, just the right. Take off your glasses and cover your left. Try to focus on two points with just the right eye.
—That’s impossible. I don’t think it’s even possible with two.
—Just try it. With one.
—I’ve done it!
—And what two things have you focused on?
—There behind you, a warm meal and a cozy bed.
—Neither of which you have right now. Do you see them or want them?
—I see what I want. Are you only here to annoy me?
Yes, it resounded, yes. It echoed and returned shame from the clouded desserts. It popped out from her throat; it reechoed and became one solid fixture. One that was more than a conversation from the winds of pipes. One that was two bodies, connected by vestigial limbs and soapy liquids and skin sparse with thick, incompatible hairs as if planted there by something else. All its parts and features and teeth and nails were grafted and stolen from other things. Even its voice contrasted its nature—pieced together by an old recording of a thousand different people speaking over each other in a big banquet hall while one sat alone in a corner, half-obscured by a heavy red curtain; alone in the cacophony, hearing too much; unable to hear a single conversation. And (p)Syve became three when it became two. Turpentine, Placid, and Fable. All in evening gowns, draped once over their malnourished bones, draped twice by (1. loose skin) and (2. questionable blemishes), draped thrice by (3. beads of sweat the air congealing languid).
She rose to the 732nd floor of buttermilk thunderhead. In court on a stage for thought, she spoke:
I can’t imagine what it would have looked like. From there. I know it sounds silly but I wish to Everything I could have gone down and seen it. Seen me from there. Alone, above. Being seen. Am I. It was all such a bit of theater. A shadowy thing in a corner. Lips lit up in the center. Makeshift plates. Wet leaves. Peppered skin, charred. Frozen. Whipped, light, clouds, open air puddle. It was. Being seen. Am I. The atmosphere was sort of. The atmosphere, it was all thick shuffles. Clod patter soles of shoes. Busy. As it went on. As there was no leaving. Because it was so dark. Because nobody could see. Am I. No door. They couldn’t leave. All audience. Face tides rippling. Looking. Did they notice. The taste in the air, sweet rot. Old butter, burnt sugar. In char, overdone leafy greens. They’d flake with a lite bite. Am I. A lite touch. They’d crumble. But I was supposed to start. Here. At some point, I was supposed to start. And They were waiting for me to start. I hoped for an ending before it began. My mistakes on all their faces. Tiny trials. Each one. Yes, I stole the trinket from the mantel. I was pressured. They wanted me to do it. I wanted them to like me. Yes, I ate too much. Yes, I ate too little for months after I ate too much. No, I didn’t go. Yes, I stayed home. The bed was beyond. It was beyond comfortable. You couldn’t imagine how comfortable it was. Yes, I went later. I was right to stay. I should have stayed. It was so comfortable. Yes, I said the wrong thing when I went. Yes, they hated me for it. Yes, they hated me anyway. I did what they said. But they hated me anyway. Yes, I would do it again. If the circumstances were the same. Yes, I haven’t changed. The bed was beyond. Comfort. They yelled at me in anger. It was hot. I heard them all at once. And finally I spoke.
In a wake for sound.