Abide Abode (3 page)

There is a
beep; I am back on my phone driving my car. ‘Anna’ my husband says.
‘ Are you there?’

NOAH

A picture sits on my wall. It’s of a lady running into the
Boxing Day tsunami. The wave thunders towards her and between her
and the wave are her children.

She runs into the wave, into certain death. For her it is not
about survival it is for love. For her

children, for family. Greater is this need than survival.
They need her, it means death, they are

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more important.

I have another picture on my wall it is the first photo
taken of Earth. It was taken on August 11
^th
1963 by Apollo 11 and is the first time all of Earth’s
population was captured in one frame. It shows us, as

one, on one planet as one organism. It is a dot.

Every hard object that you see is made of space, atoms on a
cellular level vibrating at different speeds to give hardness,
shape and ultimately depth. You matter. You are matter and should
be hungry for it. As planetary beings space does not end with you.
It is not only outside of Earth it is within it. It is you. You are
space, filled with energy; with and without the choice to what you
absorb into your space.

-Triangle Walk Excerpt –

I’ve since named life without a collective purpose as
Surreality. Without a goal life tends to be like lucid dreaming
only in the real world. You can do things but

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when you wake up nothing has changed.

Lucid dreaming is highly addictive. I started by imagining a
thing that is not found in the real world. I imagine a grate like a
fireplace, golden with a lion’s head on the top. Imagine your own
‘thing’, or use mine if you will. Know it, feel it, let it become
you. It is an object known only to your imagination. Spend some
time thinking about this object; place it in your mind. It must be
something you would never find in your day-to-day life. Think about
this object before you go to sleep. Should you see this object in
real life question it, could you be dreaming?

You are. If you see this object, touch it, feel it, realize
to yourself that you are dreaming. This takes practice, but when
you know you are dreaming take a look around, you are about to
become awake in your subconscious and with practice you learn
control. Suddenly Time and Space does not exist.

All objects, beings, words, real or imagined hold their
memories, their worlds, where they've been, what they've seen, what
they've believed, their secrets are stories. We have pools of
information passed down to us through our time lines and some of
this information has been kept back from us. Reading a memory of an
object is a lot like picking up in a book in another language, if
you don’t know how to read it,

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you can’t access the information.

Mum said ‘if you don't believe in magic, you'll not recognize
it when it happens.’ And like that I realize I’m skipping again and
unable to hold my consciousness in this time and space. I slip. I
remember. I reside./

∆

I’m carrying food up to mum, I used to talk to myself until
dad said it was a sign of madness, after I stopped it was only then
that I felt crazy. Mum told me she did the same thing and dad told
her to stop, she said dad was right but I never believed her, now
she has Parkinson's. She seems more at peace now than most people I
know, but I miss her.

My brother, Ruben, is banging in his room, when I look in
wearing large hissing headphones and lifting large dumbbells with a
cigarette hanging out his mouth.

‘
What are you doing?’ ‘Pumping GOD!!’ he replies.

‘
For fucks sake.’ I retort in another World. In this one I
don’t.

I head to mum, Dawn, who is lying in bed in front
of

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a large bay window. She’s asleep, I try to wake her
u
p but she doesn’t stir.

I put the food tray down at her side; the sharp green knife
there evokes my memory… Fuck...

∆

I’m walking along the Infinity Cruise liner again; light
obscures you before me. There is a scar across the sky, my scream
echoing from it, across my memories, across all the deserts I
walked to get here. This is life with the colour drained out. Am I
dreaming in black and white again? I hate this memory.

‘
I would tear a hole in the world to get back to you.’ I say.
It’s me talking from another world to you. ‘I'd destroy a world to
protect all others, sacrifice will breed new life, and with its own
twisted fable of feral I'll not leave without you! Not again. Never
again!’

A green knife is in my hand, it's surface glinting, I know
what I’m about to do. I’m passively watching through my eyes. I
can’t stop the motion as I thrust the knife forward into your
flesh, I’m stabbing, and red. Blood leaks from wound, running red
rivers across the deck of the boat. I look at you, part of a
silhouetted couple, one falls down, you. Blood drips off the ships
edge straight into the black and white sea, into the mass of grey
colouring the ocean; the sky and its scar watching above. The large
Infinity cruise liner

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passes over a
crevasse in the
water dwarfing the floating infinity above, an open trench in the
ocean emulating an everlasting scream.

∆

The sky has its scars, it's watching. One day all blood will
return to the sea. I’ve been crazy. Shaking, I’m holding the knife
back in my mum’s room, she’s been ill for a long time.

‘
Noah?’ Dawn murmurs in her haze.

‘
Yes mum, I’m here.’ I say, glinting knife in hand, I turn to
her knowing what I must do, ‘I’ve met someone recently and it's
changed a few things.’

∆

Skipped again. It’s some time before and dark. I can’t
remember getting here. I’m drunk, walking home. The path is winding
home is close. I hear something, a foot stumble, and a murmur.
‘Hello?’ I call out. Silence. ‘Is anyone there?’

A woman with long blonde hair, naturally pretty in a thin
white dress walks out of the darkness clutching a leather bound
book, she looks wild.

‘
ARE YOU OKAY? My name’s Noah.’ I say.

‘
Tell me.’ She says slowly and precise as she steps into the
light revealing her feral glinting eyes.

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‘
Yes?’ I ask.

‘
Can one person change the course of human history?’ Anna says
‘The Triangle Walk’ in her hand.

ANNA

Beethoven plays through the car speakers. I’m driving.
Spotlights meeting the horizon at my destination shining way up
into the depths of the sky, I’m arriving at the mansion for my
husband Evan’s big reveal. I’m excited, a little bit nervous but
sexy in my red dress and matching lipstick. The concierge takes my
car and I walk up the grand stairs, a Latino bellboy taking my
coat. Mike greets me, Evan’s counter partner; they’ve been friends
for years and have worked together ever since Evan’s father Russell
did away with his inheritance. Together they formed this company
Trident to hedge fund small businesses and have since been on the
up and now have acquired and designed the first floating island
with help from the pharmaceutical and oil industries. Floating
islands are the only solution to world population but also
theever-‐growing gap between the rich and the poor.

‘
Hey Mike, nice Tux’ I say surveying the sea of suits. ‘Global
warming setting in, I see they've found a new home for the
penguins’

‘
Always good to see you Anna’ He kisses my cheek.

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‘
Evan’s somewhere inside.’ I look over
seeing Evan, donning a tux that shows off his well-‐built frame as
a commanding presence. He has one of those youthful sparkly-‐eyed
faces that adorns a manly built physic. ‘He's the main event this
evening’ says Mike ‘I'm sure you'll be his main event
ton
ight.’

‘
Thank you Mike’ I reply to his jest. ‘I meant in the
bedroom.’

‘
I got that.’

‘
In whose bedroom?’ Evan calls me back surprising me. ‘Hello
baby.’

Evan reaches in for a quick kiss, the subtle tentative way in
which he does in front of others even though he’s no fan of public
displays of affection. ‘Congratulations, how does it feel to pull
off one of the biggest transactions the world has ever
seen?’

‘
It was nothing and a team effort’

‘
Too right’ Steve Richards laughs, a tiger of a man, joking
and bloody lovely, but I wouldn’t want to cross him in business
hours though, apparently he goes through personal assistants like
hot dinners. ‘Modest Evan, and it was the biggest, pulled together
in only three and a half years.

‘
Atlantis, the first floating city.’

His hand makes way to reveal a projection of thecircular
floating island, accommodation for seven thousand residences,
shopping malls, all amenities, gyms and boutiques, helipads.
Atlantis. Jewel of the seas.

‘
Setting sail in 2024, and what’s the bet you guys have a
penthouse apartment.’ Nods Steve.

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‘
To Atlantis.’ ‘Salute.’

‘
To Atlantis’ comes an echoing chorus of voices.

I raise my glass joining in the Viking tradition of eye
contact during cheers and pretending to slosh each other’s
champagne into each other’s glasses, in case of poison.

I catch eyes with Maria, Evan’s long time, hard working and
persevering personal assistant. Italian, her hair curled and
tonight voluptuous, she’s wearing a beautiful blue dress I’ve never
seen before. She raises her glass with us. ‘Well boys,
congratulations.’ She says.

‘
Maria!’

‘
Treacle.’ Kissing me on the cheek. ‘And Evan, congratulations
making a spectacle of yourself.’

‘
As always. ‘

In an instant phones are going of left, right and center.A
somber tone hits and Mike comes over in a flustered panic. ‘There’s
another riot kicking off in the city, they are disabling access,
apparently thousands have taken to the street.’

An exchange of worried looks take place amongst those not
reaching for or staring at their phone. Around seven years ago
there was an economic downturn and unfortunately not much had
recovered. The poor were unable to afford their homes and the
margins between the underclass and the rich became wider. The
middle class barely exists today. The riots have been labeled the
riots of disparity. We were the lucky ones. Evan managed
to

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recuperate the losses from his father dismantling his empire
of businesses. Russell his father sold off his estates and Evan’s
inheritance. Evan was not happy and took this to be a personal
insult. He’s spent the last years since with determined vigor to
put himself on the map and in my view impress his father. His
father had lost interest in money and was happy to settle for a
quiet life, urging Evan to do the same, settle down and have
children. Evans interest has been to capitalize on hisroots;
tonight he glows with pride in his accomplishments, as attractive
and motivated as ever. Hopefully we’ll now be able to settle. Money
has never been a great motivator of mine and now I find myself in
the position of luxury I find it hard to imagine going back to my
roots, though living on a farm would be nice, with space.I’ve been
looking after his ill mother for the years since Russell, his
father, departed. He was found dead outside his home, the
circumstances largely unknown.

The commotion clears as Mike announces that helicopters will
take us back to our estate. It would be the first time we’ve been
choppered around.

‘
I've got the car here’ I remember. ‘Maria can take it.’ Evan
says.