the consequence

one


An area mostly industrial and deserted, with the space of a junkyard but the containment of a back alley. It is at once claustrophobic and infinite and we know we ought to be scared but are not…yet. there is a spaceship resembling a submarine or a playstation controller. We are toying with some nearby contraptions, one that looks like a viewfinder with a trigger. It shoots fireballs, perfectly round with short tails like tadpoles. they are elastic, bouncing from one wall to another and realizing they are not made of flames but something we are not prepared to handle, we climb into the ship for safety.

When it hits, we expect the be engulfed but instead it pushes us. Further and further and it is impossible to tell if we are underwater or in the air and most of us are squinting are eyes closed waiting for the end. I can see us from the outside of the ship.

The stop is gentler than the start and we glide into a suburban street, tapping the car in front of us while we park. we are at my cousin’s house. It is not their block, but it is their house and the family is gathered at a too long table in the kitchen eating breakfast. My parents plan on taking over the house, building an extra room onto the back. we have to climb up outdoor steps to get in, like some apartment complex in warmer climates, like a motel. And we can’t bear to watch them changing our childhoods, so we leave, pile back into the craft that brought us here.

My future version cousin is driving and we are approaching the city. There is traffic and he clips an old man pedestrian near the side of the road. We panic, he is feeble, slow moving with oversized glasses, and we send him on the subway with a copy of my cousin’s screenplay, as though this is consolation of some sort.

He goes a stop and somehow – I don’t know how – but I see him get off at the next stop and turn around, as though he were worried about us following him, as though there would be consequences for us. He’s going to leave the script on the train, we say and I suggest we get on the train to try to cut him off, but my cousin still driving has other plans and leaves us by the station.
Since we are in the city already, she suggests we go to the strip of stores near the edge. They are dangerous mostly but she is collecting memorabilia of my time and this is the only place to go. There are two stores next to each other with a man standing out front, shaved head crossed arms and she shields her face when we go by, whispering that we can’t go in yet, and drags me into the third store of the row.

Suddenly I become aware that my clothes have changed and I am dressed like an action hero, some tight black lycra/leather body suit that I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to get into on my own with long black hair and bangs. She has changed too and I am sure that she is responsible for my own transformation, assuring that I do not understand this place.

Inside there is strange metal music moments arranged more like a museum than a store. In the backyard is an agent from work with long black hair and a headband. he comes in with a friend of my parents and yells hey zora good to see you again and I look behind me to see who he’s speaking to but there is no one there. And my parents’ friend comes over to introduce himself and I tell him we’ve met literally thousands of times before. He doesn’t remember. I am ready to leave.


two

i am dating an evil king or ruler of sort but it is not by my choosing. we are in a camp or prison of sorts in the industrial part of a city i recognize but can't place. there are tall iron gates at the front and he is dragging me by the wrist.

i am expected to compete for my way out and the first is a piggy back race where the king rides on my back. i can see him looking down my shirt and i tell him to stop, try to shake him off but it is very clear i am not the one in control.

there is a war. one side is lined up in chairs at the end of the field and my side is coming at them. we start out with bats and pellets and i soon abandon the bats as my aim is awful. instead, i throw the pellets which look like paintballs that explode without making a mess. each is different, the white ones are ice attacks and i am throwing handfuls of whatever i can grab at my opponent. all of which are landing, but it is impossible to gauge the impact they're having except from the complaints from the people sitting. they are angry that i am beating them so badly when this is a practice of sorts. we are supposed to be preparing for a war, and i am there as punishment, as a prisoner. when they confront me, i explain that in war there would be no mercy.

they are all demons. i didn't know. and when they float up and at me, finally untethered, i am forced into apologies.

they let me go and i head out the front gates. it's unclear whether the king knows this has transpired. there is a car waiting for me outside, big and black with suicide doors. take me anywhere i say, not knowing where to go because it does not feel safe to be alone.

three

an alternate reality where lives are predetermined. accidents are treated by placing full bodies into a shark in the center of town as some modified form of leeches. you go in ailed and come out unafflicted, shiny, new. everyone wears the same spacey outfits, whatever they're told.

i fall into it somehow, in my pajamas, into a room of a handful of people who do not understand my clothes or the way i speak. there is a cut on my arm from the trip and they want to send me to the shark. i leave a trail of blood up the wall.