Close Your Eyes and See
“I’m pissed off, but that’s not the whole story.
“Everybody alright out there? Staying cool? Weather report calls for slicing diamond-dust, so wear your masks. Won’t matter how pretty your sparkling eyebrows are if you got no flesh on your face.
“Thanks to everybody who voted on where Gecko goes next. It’s tallying it all up and we’ll have an update next week sometime. Results will be up on Estuary Net, and if you don’t know how to log on, or if this is your first time here, don’t worry, I rattle all that off at the end.”
She felt herself pause, but no one out there heard it. A slight hiccup in time for her, probably nothing but an assumed inhale for the listeners. She touched the old computer screen next to her, which was actually warm.
“We were right at the beginning of Mars Calls for WAR!—and hell yeah you gotta’ say it like that. Last week, right? Gecko?”
Her voice flattened and angled as she turned her head to ask.
“What the hell day is it? Mira, what’s that calendar say?”
Her laugh came next, which always sounded like a mountain just stood up and started clapping.
Gecko answered but there wasn’t a mic close enough.
“So whatever. It’s Friday the Whatever-eth. That calendar’s probably four years old, heh.
“And anyway, tonight isn’t normal. Tonight I’m going to take you into something I can’t explain. I mean that literally. You’ll see. Heh. You know what I mean.”
She slapped a hand onto the green button. The music and the intro blasted out over the world. Maybe it was filling up the head of whoever sent this picture to her. Gecko was standing on the old computer keyboard now, shifting its weight from one foot to the other so it could feel the keys clack and chuk into place. Sometimes Dio Ray typed on the thing. It was like playing an instrument.
While the intro played and her mic was muted she went over it all again, just in case.
“Okay so I can’t say somebody sent me something. Can’t say photo. Can’t say anything about a private net or like, speculate about where it came from. Can’t say mi abuela’s name, can’t say protest, can’t say—what else can’t I say, help me, quick.”
“Don’t say email, don’t say burst messaging, don’t even mention last week’s show, at all. Don’t describe a single object in the picture because any of the A.I.s could do a search on whatever net it came from.”
Dio Ray held a hand up because the intro was wrapping up. Mic back on.
“This’ll be a short one ‘cause I’m telling you about one thing, and it...” She almost said “it don’t move” but that was too close to “it’s a photograph.”
“It’s uh, got no music, so it’ll just be you and me. Thought about having Gecko play something in the background, maybe a low tune, some kind of steady and bouncing bass line.
“But nah. I think just you. Just me.
“Close your eyes and see.”
Dio Ray looked at the picture of her abuela on the old-ass computer screen. That thing was at least 30-years old, maybe even 40 back when Carmen Alberta was out in the streets. Meant it was nearing 150. If Gecko wasn’t some kind of super genius the boxy thing would probably still be sitting there all dusty and dead. This thing couldn’t even connect to a net, which was wild. Dio Ray had shoes that connected.
“I want you to draw a...” But she stopped and muted her mic.
“What?” Gecko asked.
“I almost said ‘draw a picture in your mind’ and I got freaked out that was too much.”
“And you got dead air right now, so.” Gecko tilted its head and gave a half smile.
Dio Ray unmuted the mic.
“Draw these things in your mind.”
What did she see?
“A field of weeds. Thick and ragged-edged. Razor sharp tips, but from a distance they just look like droopy old ears. Get close though, they cut you. Hell, don’t even have to get that close. And they cut you easy, takes no work from them, don’t change their day even a little. Around them some flowers, but the flowers are dying ‘cause the weeds throw shade. Off in the distance, a mountain, but it’s a mountain made out of shit, somebody drew a face on it. The weeds all worship it ‘cause it helps them grow. Worse, it wants them to grow.”
She looked at Gecko. It nodded and gave the “not bad” frown.
“Down inside the weeds though, something else is growing.”
She stared at Carmen Alberta’s face, at the elation there. And it was elation right before she went to jail, and in all likelihood, right before somebody whooped the shit out of her. All on the state’s dime.
“A tree. Tiny at first, and the weeds think that means it won’t do shit. Won’t make it through the shade. But trees take time. They got years, and they don’t give up. Finally the weeds move past just throwing shade, they start crowding the tree with their bodies, or uh, with their stalks, whatever.”
A quick silent “fuck” to Gecko, who just shrugged and went back to staring at the photo.
“They try to choke the tree dead, stop it from growing any taller ‘cause the weeds are sure it’ll soak up all the sun and kill them dead. Tree knows this ain’t how it works, and says so, but weeds don’t listen. All the while sh—the tree’s growing. Getting bigger. Flowers from waaaay out in the field can see it now. So can the mountain though.
“And that’s when the shit mountain decides it’s time to do something. Weeds are all getting crazy, the flowers are thinking damn, maybe they should be trees too.
“So shit mountain sets the tree on fire. Burns it down to the—to the core. Weeds are happy ‘cause a lot of flowers died too. Some weeds did too, and that’s how they justify pushing the flowers back further and further.
“That face on shit mountain looks happy, even though it never is, not really. Only sees problems and failure and waste. Can’t see hope.”
Not like Carmen Alberta’s face.
“What the mountain and the weeds didn’t see, though...what you think cine-monsters?” She paused. “That’s right. The tree had lots of branches, and every one of them branches had seed pods on them. All it took was a little wind.
“Those seeds scattered and landed. They’re waiting, right down there in the weeds, with some flowers next to ‘em. Just waiting.
“That’s Friday Night Outta’ Sight.”
She slapped the outro button and ripped her headphones off, cut her mic feed completely and stood up fast enough her chair tipped over backwards.
“Bullshit goddamn metaphor fucking...fucking...” All she could do was bellow, roar, yell like a cannon blast.
Gecko was silent, sitting on the old plastic spacebar now. It watched her, and waited.
Dio Ray seethed, she inhaled hate and breathed it back out in suffocating clouds. She pointed at the computer screen, at abuela Carmen Albert.
“We’re figuring out who sent that.”
All Gecko needed to do was nod. And it did.